1.) Poll of the Day: Dick Cheney 10 times more popular than John Edwards — With John Edwards’ trial for alleged campaign finance violations set to commence Monday, a CBS News/New York Times poll measured the former North Carolina senator’s favorability rating. The results are outstanding for Edwards. Outstandingly bad: 3% favorable, 41% not favorable, 15% undecided, 35% haven’t heard enough, 6% refused.
The not-so-shocking poll leads to an obvious question: who, exactly, are the three percent who think Edwards is so swell? But even more intriguing are the 15 percent who are undecided. What new information about Edwards are they waiting for to tip the scale?
Most exciting, however, is that the poll provides writers the opportunity to write a sentence that many thought might never be written. The last such poll of former Vice President Dick Cheney — from 2010 — showed Edwards’ 2004 electoral nemesis with a 36 percent favorability rating. That means Cheney is over 10 times more popular than someone or something, in this case one Mr. John Edwards. Cheney. Over 10 times. More. Popular. Those words may have never appeared in a sentence before — and may never again.
2.) The GOP has the brains, the Dems have the girly men? — A new poll shows that Republicans are much more knowledgeable about politics and history than Democrats, reports TheDC’s Neil Munro:
“Yet another new survey shows that Republican supporters know more about politics and political history than Democrats. On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points, according to a new Pew survey ‘Partisan Differences in Knowledge.’ The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, more empathetic and more receptive to criticism than their fellow Americans who support the Democratic Party.”
In fairness, the poll also showed Democrats to be far superior to Republicans in several ways, such as acting smug and drinking fair trade coffee.
3.) Washington partisan? You don’t say — Former DOJ official John Yoo, who has been accused of all kinds of villainy by the left, notes to TheDC’s Grae Stafford that President Obama seems to be getting a pass from those leftists who used to criticize President Bush on War on Terror issues:
“Yoo noted that the anti-war movement has hardly criticized President Barack Obama, despite his administration’s formalization of a process for ‘targeted killing’ American citizens without trial. ‘You don’t see the same critics who so thrashed President Bush, for allegedly thinking he was a king, making the same arguments and engaging in the same criticism of President Obama,’ Yoo told TheDC. ‘I think a reasonable person can only conclude that is because President Obama happens to be a Democrat, where as President Bush was a Republican.’
The anti-war left would probably disagree, but most likely because they are hardly reasonable people.
4.) David Axelrod, professional hyperventilator — On Sunday, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod accused Republicans of instituting a “reign of terror,” a phrase most commonly used to refer to the leftist terror of the French Revolution. TheDC’s Jeff Poor reports:
“Axelrod said the Republicans’ strategy was essentially a ‘reign of terror.’ ‘I think a lot of Republicans in Congress want to cooperate, know better, but they’re in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right that has dragged the party to the right,’ he continued. ‘In your own polling and other polling, you see the Republican Party has really moved out of the mainstream.’ … ‘I think that these folks are going to recognize when they lose the election that that was the wrong path to take and now is the time for a season of cooperation. We’re not going to agree on everything because that’s why we have two political parties. But we shouldn’t reflexively disagree on everything just for the sake of politics.'”
Can we suppose that Paul Ryan is Maximilien Robespierre? But instead of chopping people’s heads off, all Ryan wants to do is balance the budget. Other than that small difference, the parallel is so glaringly obvious, right? Right!?
5.) Profile in liberal insanity — In the latest profile in liberal insanity, a labor union is suing Indiana, suggesting that working alongside nonunion employees is akin to slavery. TheDC’s David Martosko reports:
“In a lawsuit against three Indiana government officials, a labor union alleged on Wednesday that its constitutional rights under the Thirteenth Amendment — which outlawed “slavery” and “involuntary servitude” — are violated whenever its members are forced to work alongside nonunion employees … And being forced to work without compensation, the union suggested in its revised lawsuit, is slavery. ‘In this case, the Defendants have exacted compulsory service and/or involuntary servitude from the Union through the combination of the passage of the Right to Work law and the existing federal requirement of the duty of fair representation,’ the amended complaint reads.”
6.) Tweet of Yesterday — Jesse Pearson: Before you Occupy Wall Street, consider occupying Shower Road with maybe a detour to Soap Lane.
VIDEO: Ginni Thomas interviews former Canadian PM Brian Mulroney