Biden my time
One would think that, in politics, being a douchebag would be a career-limiting characteristic. One would be wrong. There are a great many douchebags who are successful politicians. John Edwards is a major douchebag. Chuck Schumer is also a major douchebag. These guys just come across to most folks (ahem, me) as condescending, egotistical pricks who think they know better. Neither of them compare to the douchebag king: Mitt Romney. I mean, that guy just oozes douchebag. His level of douchebaggery transcended a new level when he was eagerly saying anything he could say to get elected (I was wrong on abortion, etc.) and still came across as a condescending prick. I mean, he was even an asshole while, basically, begging for votes.
Biden is also a douchebag, though he’s more a douchebag like Schumer is a douchebag and not so much a douchebag like Romney is a douchebag. And Biden is old school democrat, which, based on congressional approval, is not polling that well these days.
Those pondering if Palin will drop out should hope Biden does.
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 am
Did you see the video of Biden campaigning with Obama in PA? Seems he might have been celebrating a little too enthusiastically.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I so look forward to the Palin Biden debate. Left loons like Metulj are very convinced that Biden will tear Sarah Palin apart.
I’m thinking Biden burger on the grill. Probably smells like polecat.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
And Biden is old school democrat, which, based on congressional approval, is not polling that well these days.
I hear criticisms like this a lot, but I think they’re mostly vacuous. For starters, the congressional approval rating is based a lot on what the congress has or has not successfully gotten done. A lot of the stuff that the congress hasn’t gotten done was because the GOP has been filibustering the shit out of everything (something that was horrible, awful, evil obstructionism when the Democrats were doing but is now somehow okay), and because the “blue dog” wing of the party still has too much influence given the razor-thin margins in Congress.
This isn’t to say that the Democrats in congress walk on water or haven’t done stupid things — of course they don’t, and of course they have! It’s just that the approval rating of congress, in and of itself, doesn’t tell us a damn thing about public opinion on Democratic and Republican policies. Do people “disapprove” because they don’t like the policies the Democrats are pursuing? Or do they “disapprove” because the Democrats aren’t moving away from GOP positions quickly enough? (My bet: Both, in roughly equal measure, depending on who’s answering the question. Partisan Republicans and partisan Democrats are likely to be very unhappy with what congress has done and/or failed to do, and for very different reasons.) So if we’re going to do a fair comparison here, we need to figure out why people don’t approve of congress, something these polls never seem to do, because that would be, you know, hard, or something.
But the more fundamental problem is that such polling treats congress like a whole, single entity, as opposed to the giant cluster f–k that it actually is. Ask the same people who “disapprove” of congress how they feel about their congresscritter, and I bet the approval rating for that moves into the positives, even if modestly. Oh, my congresscritter is okay, but congress as a whole blows.
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Oh noes, not the stupid ‘we can’t do anything because of the Republicans’ canard again. Throw in the lie that Republicans were against filibustering when they were in control, and voila, instant leftard groupthink speech. Speaking of vacuous…
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Except I didn’t pin it all on the Republicans. I also pinned it on crap Democrats. And none of that matters to the larger point that the congressional approval rating by itself doesn’t tell us a damn thing about how the public feels about Democratic or Republican policies — a point you’ve done absolutely nothing to refute.
And the Republicans did threaten to eliminate the filibuster at least in certain circumstances. I suppose you could spin that hard enough to mean that they weren’t “against” it.