For all of his many campaign promises of bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades.  The 61-point partisan gap in opinions about Obama’s job performance is the result of a combination of high Democratic ratings for the president — 88% job approval among Democrats — and relatively low approval ratings among Republicans (27%) according to Pew Research.   

Maybe citizens have noticed Obama  specific betrayal of his promise to provide  the first post partisan presidency in history" by failing:
1.) To post all spending bills on the Internet for five days prior to any vote,
2.) Spending trillions in stimulus before any member of Congress could even read the bill, or
3.) Failing to provide electronic copies (PDF) of spending bills to Republicans before forcing votes.

Apparently, voters now understand that in the Obama Administration,  post" or  after" partisan means fascism.    By comparison the research notes there was a somewhat smaller 51-point partisan gap in views of George W. Bush’s job performance in April 2001, a few months into his first term.  At that time, Republican enthusiasm for Bush was comparable to how Democrats feel about Obama today, but there was substantially less criticism from members of the opposition party.  Among Democrats, 36% approved of Bush’s job performance in April 2001; that compares with a 27% job approval rating for Obama among Republicans today.   

The partisan gap in Bill Clinton’s early days was also substantially smaller than what Obama faces, largely because Democrats were less enthusiastic about Clinton.  In early April 1993, 71% of Democrats approved of Clinton’s job performance, which is 17 points lower than Obama’s current job approval among Democrats. Republican ratings of Clinton at that point (26%) are comparable to their current ratings of Obama today (27%).   

The growing partisan divide in presidential approval ratings is part of a long-term trend.  Going back in time, partisanship was far less evident in the early job approval ratings for both Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon.  In fact, a majority of Republicans (56%) approved of Carter’s job performance in late March 1977, and a majority of Democrats (55%) approved of Nixon’s performance at a comparable point in his first term.   

For more from Pew Research, click here.      

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a  "a game changer."  

Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee in the lawsuit against the group, recounted for the committee what she had been told by a former ACORN worker who had worked in the group’s Washington, D.C. office.

The former worker, Anita Moncrief, told Ms. Heidelbaugh last October, during the state committee  litigation against ACORN, she had been a  "confidential informant for several months to The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Strom."   Ms. Moncrief had been providing Ms. Strom with information about ACORN  election activities. Ms. Strom had written several stories based on information Ms. Moncrief had given her.   During her testimony, Ms. Heidelbaugh said Ms. Moncrief had told her The New York Times articles stopped when she revealed that the Obama presidential campaign had sent its maxed-out donor list to ACORN  Washington, D.C. office. 

Ms. Moncrief told Ms. Heidelbaugh the campaign had asked her and her boss to "reach out to the maxed-out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN."  Ms. Heidelbaugh then told the congressional panel: "Upon learning this information and receiving the list of donors from the Obama campaign, Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote,  it was a game changer."’ 

Ms. Moncrief made her first overture to Ms. Heidelbaugh after The New York Times allegedly spiked the story on Oct. 21, 2008. Last fall, she testified under oath about what she had learned about ACORN from her years in its Washington, D.C. office. Although she was present at the congressional hearing, she did not testify.  U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., the ranking Republican on the committee, said the interactions between the Obama campaign and ACORN, as described by Ms. Moncrief, and attested to before the committee by Ms. Heidelbaugh, "could possibly violate federal election law, and  ACORN has a pattern of getting in trouble for violating federal election laws."   

He also voiced criticism of The New York Times.   "If true, The New York Times is showing once again that it is a not an impartial observer of the political scene," he said. "If they want to be a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, they should put Barack Obama approves of this in their newspaper."  Academicians and journalism experts expressed similar criticism of the Times.    "The New York Times keeps going over the line in every single campaign and last year was the worst, easily," said Mal Kline of the American Journalism Center.  "They would ignore real questions worth examining about Obama, the questions about Bill Ayers or about how he got his house. Then on the other side they would try to manufacture scandals."  Mr. Kline mentioned Gov. Sarah Palin was cleared by investigators of improperly firing an Alaska State Trooper, but went unnoticed by The Times.   How many stories about this were in The New York Times," he asked.  

"If this is true, it would not surprise me at all. The New York Times is a liberal newspaper. It is dedicated to furthering the Democratic Party," said Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of Political Science at Grove City College.  "People think The New York Times is an objective news source and it is not. It would not surprise me that if they had a news story that would have swayed the election into McCain  favor they would not have used it."  ACORN has issued statements claiming that Ms. Moncrief is merely a disgruntled former worker.  

"None of this wild and varied list of charges has any credibility and we’re not going to spend our time on it," said Kevin Whelan, ACORN deputy political director in a statement issued last week.  Stephanie Strom was contacted for a comment, and The New York Times’ Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications Catherine Mathis replied with an e-mail in her place. 

Ms. Mathis wrote,  "In response to your questions to our reporter, Stephanie Strom, we do not discuss our newsgathering and won’t comment except to say that political considerations played no role in our decisions about how to cover this story or any other story about President Obama."  

Michael P. Tremoglie can be reached at mailto:mtremoglie@thebulletin.us.  

First published Monday, March 30, 2009 by  "The Philadelphia Bulletin".  

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), issued a warning today that the goal of President Obama to bring  unprecedented transparency" may not be met without a major revamp of Recovery.gov, the information hub for the administration  recovery efforts.  

"Instead of being a one-stop shop for stimulus information, Recovery.gov does little more than redirect its visitors to other agency websites," stated Coburn in a statement prepared for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.  "Without a major revamp of the website, I am afraid that taxpayers will be confused and wasteful spending will occur in secret."

Sen. Coburn worked with then-Sen. Barack Obama to secure passage of the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act (P.L. 109-282) that resulted in the creation of USASpending.gov, a website that provides details on federal funding recipients.  In a March 8, 2009,  Wall Street Journal  article, Earl Devaney, head of the new Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board, said that approximately $84 million over the next two years would be used to develop Recovery.gov.  

"For that kind of money the administration should produce a top notch website.  Unfortunately, the product we have seen so far leaves much to be desired," Dr. Coburn said.         

"The United States can do nothing to stop North Korea from breaking international law in the next 10 days by firing a missile that is unlikely to be shot down by the U.S. or its allies," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.  

Appearing on  FOX News Sunday,  Gates said North Korea "probably will" fire the missile, prompting host Chris Wallace to ask:  "And there’s nothing we can do about it?"  

"No," Gates answered, adding,  "I would say we’re not prepared to do anything about it."

Last week, Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, said the  "U.S. is  fully prepared  to shoot down the missile."  But Gates said such a response is unlikely .   "I think if we had an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii, that looked like it was headed for Hawaii or something like that, we might consider it,"  Gates said.    "But I don’t think we have any plans to do anything like that at this point."

North Korea has moved a missile onto a launch pad and says it will be fired by April 8.  Pyonyang insists the missile is designed for carrying a communications satellite, not a nuclear warhead that the secretive nation appears bent on developing.   Gates said while he doesn’t think North Korea has the capability yet to shoot off a long-range nuclear-tipped missile,  "I don’t know anyone at a senior level in the American government who does not believe this technology is intended as a mask for the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile." 

Gates conceded that North Korea will likely get away with thumbing its nose at the international community by test-firing the missile.  He also said that six-party talks aimed at curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions have been largely fruitless.    "It’s very troubling," Gates said.  The reality is that the six-party talks really have not made any headway anytime recently.    

Gates also lamented that the missile launch planned by dictator Kim Jong-Il comes just two months after President Obama took office.   "If this is Kim Jong-Il’s welcoming present to a new president, launching a missile like this and threatening to have a nuclear test, I think it says a lot about the imperviousness of this regime in North Korea to any kind of diplomatic overtures,"  he said.    Gates also said Japan is unlikely to shoot down a North Korean missile unless it drops debris on the island nation.    The Obama administration has signaled it wants to scale back the deployment of a missile defense system that was initiated by former President George W. Bush.  The White House is also talking about dropping plans for missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.     Gates lamented the futility of diplomatic efforts toward North Korea and Iran, another nation with nuclear ambitions. 

Despite the Obama administration’s talk of ramping up diplomatic overtures toward Tehran, Gates was pessimistic about that strategy.      "Frankly, from my perspective, the opportunity for success is probably more in economic sanctions in both places than it is in diplomacy,"  Gates said.   "What gets them to the table is economic sanctions."

Click here for more from FoxNews.    

Analysis:  After only two months of the Obama presidency, Americans are horrified, angry, depressed, and on the verge of full-scale revolt against the president and his toadying Socialist acolytes for doing their best to destroy our once-vibrant economy, inflict decades of debt on our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and usher in what historians will surely record as "The Age of The Hubristic and Incompetent Presidency".    

This assessment is borne out by polls, man-and-woman-in-the-street interviews, escalating unemployment figures, and creeping inflation which threatens to become the hyperinflation that will put the final nail in an economy that up until 2006  "when the Democrats took control of the Congress" was on a consistently upward trajectory, with unprecedentedly low unemployment, and hard-working Americans enjoying the fruits of their labors. 

But all that changed when an inexperienced novice from the Chicago Machine offered "hope" and "change" to an electorate that had been brainwashed by a leftist media to believe that President Bush had lost the war in Iraq (wrong -we won! ), instituted  "unfair" policies toward our enemies via the Patriot Act, Gitmo, rendition, et al. (which kept us safe!), and  "supported an unfair" free-market economy (which kept about 92 percent of Americans flourishing!).   Yet in a mere two months, our radical leftwing president has:  –  Demoralized our heroic troops  with drastic cuts to our military budget.  –   Threatened to force our injured heroes  to pay their own healthcare expenses  since rescinded, but don’t count on that lasting.  –  Compromised our national security  by closing Gitmo with no plan for where the released terrorists will go.  – Mandated his kill-as-many-unborn-infants-as-possible agenda  by overturning the Mexico City Policy.  – Rewarded Hamas terrorists  with $900 million to replenish their killing machine against Israel.   –  All-but bankrupted our economy  and left future generations with mountains of debt.  –  Proposed a  "domestic security force"   complete with uniforms    that reeks of the Third Reich  Brown Shirts.  –  Launched his Acorn cronies to foist a  "Pledge to Obama"   "not to America" on the public.  –  Unleashed an army of incompetents  to deal with our economic and financial problems. 

Yet Obama persists in supporting those incompetents "and the  tax cheats"  who surround him.   

Why? I suspect that Obama  destroy-America agenda is to actualize his long-time hatred of the American way of life in order to convert America  exceptionalism into the documented history of Socialism  lengthy history of drastic failures.  Again, why? It is because Socialists like Obama  being kind here; it looks more like Communism to me   believe that minorities like blacks and Hispanics and unionists and women and gays and teachers are all too stupid to make it on their own in a capitalist system. Apparently, all of these career-victim groups agree with him, while ignoring all they’ve gained over the past hundred-years in genuine equality and justice, their serial grievances notwithstanding.  

Interesting, isn’t it, that our borders are being overrun by the real victims of oppressive regimes while our own home-grown  "victims" aren’t fleeing to any of the countries they revere   "like Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, or the terrorist-supporting Mideast states like Saudi Arabia, Syria, or so-called  Palestine"?  But there is one thing our increasingly impoverished populace can thank the president for, which is saving them the cost   "well over $250,000" of sending their children to Ivy League schools.

Once thought of as both the realization of success and the path to both personal power and the  better life" that a free-market economy offered, the eight schools of Ivy status   Harvard, Yale, UPenn, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, Columbia and Cornell   have been distinguished by their academic excellence and selective admissions, although the past several decades have seen steadily increasing admissions of minorities.   

THE PRESIDENT  IVY  IDIOTS   
So who are the  "brains" of the Ivy League guiding our country in this perilous time, the top echelon who are pretending to have a clue about "fixing" the economy through the current recession-cum-depression? 

President Barack Obama:  Columbia U; Harvard Law School. Business experience: Zero.    Sec . of State Hillary Clinton:    Yale ;  Yale Law School. Business experience: selling Brownie and Girl Scout cookies in grade school.  Sec. of the Treasury (and tax cheat) Timothy Geithner:  Dartmouth;  ( Master  from   John Hopkins). Business experience: Zero.  Attorney General at Dept. of Justice Eric Holder:  Columbia; Columbia Law School. Business experience: Zero.  Sec. of Commerce Gary Locke:  Yale; (Boston U. Law School). Business experience: part-time jobs through college.  Sec. of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan:  Harvard ;  Master  from Harvard. Business experience: Zero. 

All of the above are Ivy Leaguers "the so-called best and brightest" who are running our country and effectively running it into the ground.  

God help us!  But there are plenty of non-Ivy idiots who are aiding and abetting the president  destroy-America agenda.  Vice President (gaffe-o-meter) Joseph Biden:  UDelaware; Syracuse U. Law School.  Sec. of Defense Robert Gates:  William & Mary; Master  from Indiana U; Ph.D. from Georgetown U.   Sec. of Agriculture Tom Vilsack:  Hamilton College; Albany Law School. Sec. of Labor (okay, her husband has tax liens) Hilda Solis:  CalState Polytechnic U; Univ. of Southern CA.   Sec. of Transportation Ray (Chicago Machine) LaHood:  Bradley U.  Sec. of Energy (the man-made global-warming huckster) Steven Chu:  U of Rochester; Ph.D. from U of CA.  Sec. of Veteran  Affairs General Eric Shinseki:  U.S. Military Academy; Master  from Duke U.  Sec. of Homeland Security (don’t protect the Mexican border) Janet Napolitano:  Santa Clara U (CA); U of Virginia Law School.  Sec. of Education Arne (Chicago Machine) Duncan:   Sec. of Health and Human Services Kathleen (yes to abortion) Sebelius:  Trinity Washington U; Masters from U of Kansas. 

And that is not to omit the positions of people who also enjoy Cabinet-rank, the president  all-important Council of Economic Advisors.    Chairwoman Christina Romer:  William & Mary; Master  from Mass. Institute of Technology (MIT). Business experience: Zero.  The Office of Management & Budget  Director Peter R. Orszag:   Princeton ; Master  from London School of Economics. Business experience: Zero.  The United States Trade Representative Ambassador-designate Ronald Kirk:  Austin College; U of Texas Law School. Business experience: Zero.   The United States Ambassador to the United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice:  Stanford U; Master  and Doctorate from Oxford. Business experience: Zero.  The White House Chief of Staff Rahm (Chicago Machine) Emanuel:  Evanston School of Ballet; Sarah Lawrence College; Master  from Northwestern U. Business experience: worked at Arby’s  restaurant while in high school.   Then there are the two Representatives   and architects of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac implosion, both with Zero business experience   Cong. Barney Frank (Harvard) and Sen. Chris Dodd (Providence College, U. of Louisville Law School).

And let’s not forget the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke (Harvard; Ph.D. from M.I.T.), whose business experience involved working construction in high school and as a waiter through college.  Okay, I take it back. It  not just the poison Ivy set, but also those with fancy credentials from other schools who have demonstrated that their guiding leftwing philosophy translates into disastrous economic policy. Incredible, isn’t it, that a bunch of eggheads and career politicians with no practical, hands-on, real-life experience in the business world are purporting to be  experts" in getting us out of the mess many of them helped to create!   

POISON KILLS!    Today, these arrogant know-nothings, particularly President Obama and his lackey-in-chief Tim Geithner, are asking an increasingly skeptical   if not cynical   Congress to grant them the power to, in effect, seize more and more private enterprises, the better to speed up the nationalization of  all  profit-making businesses. Oh how they loathe private enterprise, entrepreneurship, rugged individualism, and America  spirit of freedom! Oh how they revile  "and love to flout"  the U.S. Constitution! Oh how these elitists love cramming their poison pills down the gagging, choking, suffocated throats of Americans!     

"Swallow this poison!" they demand.  So what if you, the taxpayer, paid for the first $180-billion stimulus dose  that didn’t work, and the second $345-billion housing bailout dose  that didn’t work , and the third $700-billion Wall St. bailout dose  that didn’t work , and the $1.5-trillion in debt that the Federal Reserve bought from the U.S. Treasury dose  that didn’t work , and $3.1-trillion U.S. budget  that won’t work?

"Swallow it! And if you don’t like the taste, if it  making you sick, well too damn bad!"    But be warned. While President Obama and Sen. Dodd are exhorting AIG (American International Group) employees to give back the bonus money they got, they plan to keep the $101,322 and $280,000 they gleaned, respectively, in political donations from the failing company, while all the time plotting to sugarcoat the next poison pill they want to cram down the craws of Americans. 

How so? Dodd (and Barney Frank, for that matter) will continue with the duplicitous double-talk and evade-responsibility two-step they’ve become so adept at over decades. And Obama will continue  reaching out" to the public in gaffe-ridden appearances like his recent foray on The Tonight Show and in overkill public forums in which he will subvert the English language to tell Americans that poor is rich, oppressed is emancipated, tyranny is benevolent, and that the bad taste in their mouths from his next poison pill is good for them!   

This is how the leftist so-called intelligentsia works. Say the exact opposite of what you mean and rely on the people you consider both stupid and gullible to believe it. To this point, Americans have given President Obama a grace period to get his bearings and hit his stride "the  honeymoon" period, so to speak, sort of like when a new bride (the American people) and the new groom (the president) get to know each other, size each other up, and see if they’re compatible.  

For people like me, as for multimillions of Americans  "including increasing numbers of Democrats and Independents"   the honeymoon is over! We don’t like  your  America or your friends and colleagues or your plans for our future. And we detest the poison pills that your poison Ivys have crammed down our throats.    But thank you anyway, Mr. President, for single-handedly mobilizing our electorate to wrest away the Congress in 2010 from the anti-American Democrats who now infest the House and Senate.

About the author: Joan Swirsky (http://www.joanswirsky.com/) is a New York-based journalist and author who can be reached at mailto:joansharon@aol.com.