In the December issue of Townhall Magazine-- which you can subscribe to by clicking here -- I wrote about the importance of religion in presidential campaigns. From former President’s Theodore Roosevelt’s failed bid for a third term in 1912 to Senator John Kennedy’s successful bid for the presidency in 1960 to even today, religion has often played an important role on the campaign trail. As I noted in the piece, however, some candidates are treated differently when the subject of religion comes up and a new report- which can be found here -- further supports that theory.

The Media Research Center’s Culture and Media Institute's new report examines the network news' coverage of religion in the GOP primary this year. The report's executive summary notes that the study focuses on "reporting on the GOP candidates and religion from Jan. 1-Oct. 31, 2011, and compared it to coverage of the Democratic presidential primary candidates over the same period in 2007."

Some key findings show how the networks treated the subject differently. For instance, the report's executive summary notes that “ABC, CBS and NBC mentioned GOP candidates’ religion 143 times in the first 10 months of 2011. By contrast, Democratic candidates’ faith was brought up only 19 times in the same period of the 2008 election cycle.”

The summary also noted that in 2007, members of the media seemed to accept the religious values of the liberal candidates without asking a lot of questions. The report added, however, that in 2011, "[t]he networks were nearly 13 times more likely to be critical or challenging of conservative candidates' faith than liberals.'"

On the other hand, when Obama was running for president, the Jeremiah Wright story was often overlooked until some of his sermons became too much to keep under the radar. Even when the media focused on Wright's angry rhetoric, very few stories focused on Obama's specific religious beliefs and what sermons he actually witnessed as a member of Wright's Church. If religious beliefs are so important for candidates in 2011, what accounts for the paucity of such stories during the Democratic primary campaign of 2007?

Hopefully, the MRC’s study will bring more attention to this issue. If religion is an important subject to discuss with conservative candidates, I only wish that the media would treat liberal candidates the same way.

To learn about more the subject of religion in presidential politics, check out my article on the subject on newsstands now or subscribe to Townhall Magazine today by clicking here!

If you haven't seen the "60 Minutes" report on insider corruption in DC, make sure you check it out....

Via Breitbart:

Your comments on the report are welcome....

UPDATE: It looks like Nancy Pelosi was none too pleased about the accusations leveled against her in this report.

She tweeted the following message out to her followers after the report aired: "I was the Speaker the credit card industry feared most--tonight's CBS smear not based on facts: http://t.co/0GWPKulv."

Just when you thought that Hollywood is completely liberal, one of the few known conservatives in Tinseltown recently stepped forward to remind us otherwise. In this case, it's actor/director Clint Eastwood, who recently did an interview with the L.A Times where he talked about his political beliefs.

Some highlights:

Having started voting for GOP presidential contenders in 1952 with Dwight Eisenhower, Eastwood said he was tempted to break ranks only once — in 1992, for Ross Perot. “I liked him,” Eastwood said. “I guess because I like rebels.”...

“...I’m a big hawk on cutting the deficit. I was against the stimulus thing too. We shouldn’t be bailing out the banks and car companies. If a CEO can’t figure out how to make his company profitable, then he shouldn’t be the CEO.”

When it comes to the current crop of Republican presidential candidates, if Eastwood is enthusiastic about anyone, it’s Herman Cain. “I love Cain’s story,” he says. “He’s a guy who came from nowhere and did well, obviously against heavy odds. He’s a doer and a straight-talker, which I don’t see enough of from either party.”.

You can check out the complete interview by clicking here.

Elizabeth Warren, who fought for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while working in the Obama administration, is only a few weeks into her campaign to become the next Senator from Massachusetts and it already feels like she's becoming "Martha Coakley 2.0."

In her latest blunder, Warren noted how her campaign is aiming to receive the "hick vote" in the state. Politico.com reported that she talked about such a constituency during a recent podcast. After the podcast host talked about being called a hick himself and Warren's own background, Politico quoted Warren as saying the following: :

WARREN: “I’m going for the hick vote here, I just want you to know. Maybe we could start wearing stickers that say ‘Hicks for Elizabeth’ – could we do that?”

Doesn't this kind of elitist language sound familiar?

In her bid against Scott Brown in 2010, State Attorney General Martha Coakley often sounded condescending as well. For instance, in January of 2010, the Boston Globe quoted Coakley disparaging the act of shaking hands with voters outside of Fenway Park.  Brown, who went on to win that election, had spent some of his time shaking hands, something that Coakley seemingly looked down on.

Now. by looking down at some voters and calling them "hicks," it looks like Warren might be becoming the next Martha Coakley.

That's definitely good news for Scott Brown fans.

Katie Pavlich recently wrote a blog about a 47-year-old man who openly heckled and harassed Bristol Palin in a bar. It's been a few days since the incident transpired and the man in question has now apologized for his disrespectful behavior.

From Reuters.com:

The man who lambasted Bristol Palin at a West Hollywood watering hole last week has apologized for the incident, calling his behavior "improper."

He has also received a number of threats since the incident occurred, according to his attorney.

In a statement furnished to TheWrap by his attorney, Stephen Hanks -- who, among other things, called Palin's mother, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin "a whore" -- says that, while he's still not a big fan of Bristol's mother, it was wrong to take out his anger on Bristol.

"Having had an opportunity to view the camera footage of the incident this past Thursday at the Saddle Ranch Bar & Chop House in West Hollywood, and having reflected on the incident over the weekend, I have come to the conclusion that no matter what my feelings are toward Sarah Palin, I should not have expressed them toward her daughter, Bristol Palin."

It's good to see that this heckler has finally apologized. Although I don't endorse the threats that he has received,this man was disrespectful and clearly out of line.

Although I'm not a fan of confrontation, I think Bristol's standing up for her mom is part of the reason why this story has received as much attention as it has. She was willing to stand up for her mother and now, this man has finally backed away from his vulgar language and his angry rhetoric.

As the Solyndra scandal continues to dominate headlines, it looks like the Energy Department is continuing its program of giving out loans to clean-technology companies. However, as the Washington Post recently reported, payments to energy companies are now taking place at a FASTER rate than they were before.

From the Post:

The Energy Department, under fire over its management of a program that offers loan guarantees to clean-technology companies, has been finalizing additional multimillion-dollar loan guarantees in the program at a rate of more than one a week since the beginning of August. It now has just two weeks left to commit the program’s remaining $9.3 billion....

Since the start of August, the Department of Energy has closed seven loan guarantees, at a rate of more than one a week — after approving just 11 in the previous 26 months of the program.

So it looks like the Energy Department is not only moving forward with the program. It's giving out loans faster than it was before so that it can spend more of the BILLIONS of dollars that are remaining.

One hopes that the department is now giving more scrutiny to companies than it was before but with the deadline looming, I'm not optimistic.

Note: If education reform is important to you, I highly recommend that you go see the new documentary "Waiting for Superman" before the November elections. The new documentary highlights the importance of reform and shows some of the obstacles standing in its way. My full analysis of the film is below:

“It’s like turning the lights off in the middle of heart surgery.”

That’s how director Davis Guggenheim described the recent resignation of D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee in a recent interview with conservative talk show host Michael Medved. Rhee resigned after her political patron D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty lost the Democratic primary in his re-election bid. Rather than deal with a boss whose support for strong school reform is less pronounced, Rhee will be leaving her position at the end of the month. Her departure is particularly tragic considering that her remarkable work is now being highlighted nationwide in Guggenheim’s film “Waiting for Superman”. 

The title for the new documentary comes from one of the educators featured in it. In his youth, that educator believed in superman and was saddened to learn that his hero didn’t exist. Superman, he eventually realized, only existed in a fantasy world where he could prevent great distress.

For students who face disappointment and distress in our school system today, there is no one superman who will arrive to fix the failures of public education.

“Waiting for Superman” explores the lives of several students who are trying to make it through public schools today. Many of these students are stuck in a system that does not work and they are forced into inferior schools where their opportunities for success after graduation are sometimes limited. One parent in the film talks about the importance of her child having a career versus a job. She knows the difference between the two as she knows the difference between sending her child to a good school and a mediocre one.

Many of the obstacles blocking the progress of millions of children in schools today are highlighted in the film. Some of the most blatant failures of the public school system like “drop-out factories” (schools with a high drop-out rate), “lemon dances” (schools sending their worst teachers to other schools and then accepting failing teachers themselves)  and “rubber rooms” (places where teachers placed on leave waste their time playing card games while getting paid) are discussed in detail. These phrases might not be familiar to you but parents have likely seen the consequences of these failings firsthand. Another obstacle shown blocking progress in today’s schools are the teacher’s unions, whose support of tenure and strict union contracts help keep bad teachers in classrooms.

“Waiting for Superman” isn’t the best film I’ve seen this year but IT IS the most important one. As this film points out, changing our failing education system isn’t easy. If a person tries to take dramatic steps to improve it, he or she will likely be vilified for fighting against the status quo.

A prime example of that is Michelle Rhee, who is featured prominently in the documentary. Rhee became chancellor of D.C. public schools in 2007 and found out how difficult changing the system really is. Several months ago, a Washington Post editorial explored Rhee's early impact in schools: 

She was the mayor's surprise choice three years ago to lead the schools after he persuaded the council to give him control of the public school system. Mr. Fenty saw Ms. Rhee, who had never run a school system, as a change agent who would make the hard decisions that generations of D.C. officials lacked the political will to do. 

Ms. Rhee did not disappoint, cleaning up the central office, firing principals who couldn't deliver, closing underutilized schools and insisting there be higher expectations and new accountability.

A Post editorial a few months later noted some of Rhee’s accomplishments in office:

Under Ms. Rhee's leadership, the District went from having the country's worst scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress to leading the nation in the rate of improvement. African American students make up about 75 percent of the public school enrollment and -- contrary to claims by critics -- they have not been left behind. On local test scores, 23.93 percent of black elementary students were proficient in math and 32.62 percent were proficient in reading in 2007; the percentages rose to 36.9 in math and 38.77 in reading in 2010. The gains of black secondary-school students were even more remarkable: In 2007, 22.48 percent were proficient in math and 25.85 percent were proficient in reading, compared with 37.59 percent proficient in math and 38.05 percent in reading in 2010.

These improvements only tell part of the story of Rhee’s successful tenure. On a large scale, these improvements speak for themselves.

However, other stories point to Rhee’s impact on a smaller scale. Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews recently reported on a small change in a local classroom that made a huge difference. As Mathews wrote, a broken classroom door lock was causing issues for Anthony Priest, a D.C. schoolteacher. Because the lock was broken, students and non-students often barged into the room and interrupted his class. Security didn’t help and the school principal denied the broken lock’s impact in the classroom. After receiving little support from his principal, Priest e-mailed Rhee and the lock was fixed the following day. As Mathews wrote, “The repair, Priest said, became ‘a huge help on my ability to control the class.’" 

There are some critics who have noted that Rhee is not the only person who can fix D.C. schools. After she leaves her position at the end of the month, one of her closest associates will become interim chancellor. That’s encouraging news but if progress falters in D.C., Rhee’s departure will likely be seen as a pivotal turning point for school reform in the district.

Fortunately, “Waiting for Superman” captures some of her work on film. The movie is often dispiriting and distressing but when it focuses on Rhee and other reformers, it is also inspiring.

Parents and teachers alike should see “Waiting for Superman”, along with anyone else  who has an interest in the future of this country.

If you aren’t upset about the state of education today, you should be. If you aren’t disappointed in the failures of public education, you ought to be. If you’re not aware of the issues facing public schools today, then you must see “Waiting for Superman” and get involved so that students today won’t have to wait forever for a hero that will never arrive.

*This piece was also posted on Big Hollywood.

As ABC News' Jake Tapper reported, President Obama said yesterday in his Ohio speech that "government should be lean" and "efficient". Such fiscally responsible rhetoric is antithetical to President Obama's record so far in office.

As CNS.com has reported, President Obama's record is clearly not one of a fiscally responsible leader. CNS.com noted that "In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan." Later on in the CNS article, the author noted that "In just the last four months (May through August), according to the CBO, the Obama administration has run cumulative deficits of $464 billion, more than the $458 billion deficit the Bush administration ran through the entirety of fiscal 2008."

With the election less than 60 days away, it is clear that President Obama does not want to talk about his administration's reckless spending habits. He doesn't want to talk about fiscal irresonsibility on the part of his administration. He wants to talk about fiscal responsibility. As Greg Hengler wrote, Obama said in his speech yesterday that he was "commited to fiscal responsibility."  

In that same speech, Obama also said "Let's look at the facts." The facts show that despite his fiscally responsibile rhetoric, President Obama's records show a fiscally irresponsible leader trying to hide his own spending habits from the voters. 

It seems odd to question how much of an effect the tea party will have in this Tuesday's Alaskan Senatorial primary. Alaska’s own former Governor Sarah Palin is a well-known tea party supporter, and the former vice presidential candidate's endorsements have certainly helped many Republican candidates in primaries this year. However, in the Alaskan Senatorial primary, Palin’s endorsed candidate Joe Miller will be facing an extremely tough challenge in hoping to beat incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Senator Murkowski is well-known around the state and has been in office since 2002. She was originally appointed to the position by her father, former Governor Frank Murkowski. Later on, though, the senior Murkowski was replaced as Governor by a young former mayor named Sarah Palin. However, as a Washington Post article recently noted, Senator Murkowski is well-liked in the state and even noted that “the first name in Alaskan Republican politics is still Murkowski. Actually, it's Lisa.” 

However, that has not helped Murkowski in her bid for support from conservatives nationwide. Both Sarah and Todd Palin are actively supporting Murkowski’s opponent and many other conservatives are standing up for Miller as well. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has endorsed Miller. Radio show hosts Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin have also endorsed the conservative attorney.

In late June, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza analyzed the Murkowski-Miller race. He noted that “On the surface, Sen. Lisa Murkowski -- a pro-abortion rights, member of GOP leadership and supporter of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is an obvious target” for the tea party but that “beating an incumbent -- even in a tumultuous election cycle like this one -- is never as easy proposition…”

This Tuesday, the Alaskan Senatorial primary race comes to a conclusion. I expect a lot of political commentators will focus on the results of this election, noting whether or not Palin’s endorsement of Miller was helpful to him in this tough primary race. Regardless of outcome, this will definitely be an interesting race to watch.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a strong ally of tea parties nationwide, is using the opportunity of Congress being called back into session to hold a call of her own. 

Tonight, Bachmann will be hosting a tele-Townhall. She promoted the call on her campaign website, under the subheadline "Bachmann Calls for Nancy Pelosi To Enter 12 Step Program For Her Addiction To Job-Killing Spending" :

With Nancy Pelosi’s declaration that Congress will be reconvening to authorize billions of dollars of spending the government doesn’t have, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann announced she will be holding a National Tea Party Tele-Townhall to listen to the response of the American people...

People interested in participating in the National Tea Party Tele-Townhall on Monday, August 9 at 6 pm central – the same time Pelosi will be convening Congress  - can sign up on www.michelebachmann.com/sign-up-for-the-national-tea-party-tele-townhall . Over one million people will be invited to participate, and is expected to be the largest tele-townhall ever held by members of Congress.

Yesterday, I wrote about the off-putting NYT piece by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that was unfortunately entitled "Welcome to the Recovery." Mike Allen's political playbook, which reported that the Treasury Department apparently did not want that optimistic headline, noted that Politico's Ben White had addressed the backlash to the controversial headline in detail.

White wrote the following in Politico's Morning Money:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? The Morning Money e-mail box lit up as soon as people started reading Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s op-ed in the New York Times under the headline “Welcome to the Recovery.”

All of the messages, from conservative bankers to liberal bloggers, roasted Geithner for what complainants described as his premature declaration of victory over the recession at a time when many are still suffering and the jobless rate stagnates near 10 percent. "Is this a little like ‘Mission Accomplished?" one person wrote, referring to the infamous George W. Bush aircraft carrier moment. Another: “More than one person has said to me today, ‘Doesn’t ‘Welcome to the Recovery’ sound like Mission Accomplished’”?

I'm not sure if the headline will become as famous as the "Mission Accomplished" banner but the Geithner piece is turning out to be a major public relations mistake only a few weeks before the midterm elections. 

It may not feel like we are in a full-fledged economic recovery yet but the Treasury Secretary seemed to imply otherwise in a recent New York Times piece entitled "Welcome to the Recovery". Although Secretary Timothy Geithner noted in the piece that we still have a long way to go, it seems a little off-putting for the Treasury Secretary to welcome us to a recovery when the unemployment rate is still well over 9% and not expected to go down much further in the near future.

A new jobs report for July is due this week but the jobs report for June wasn't terribly optimistic. A CNN.com news items about that report was titled "Job recovery hits a wall" and reported that the economy lost 125,000 jobs in June. One hopes that the July jobs report will be much stronger. Regardless, I'm sure that the millions of Americans out there who still don't have jobs don't feel like we are in a "recovery".

Liberal economist Paul Krugman even seemed surprised by Geithner's piece. After criticizing Republicans for obstructionism (unsurprisingly) and saying that the government has not done enough to stimulate the economy, Krugman wrote that "the [Obama] administration has decided to engage in happy talk, saying that it’s all good. Do they really think this will work?" 

The adminisitration might think so but until a lot more jobs are added to this economy, it seems like it's too early for the Treasury Secretary to welcome us to a recovery. 
 

In case you missed it, check out yesterday's Washington Post piece about Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan and his plan for budget reform:

Viewing him as a rising star in the party, Republicans in Congress often talk up Rep. Paul Ryan as a potential governor, senator or House leader. The lanky, youthful-looking congressman from Wisconsin has begged off, citing his young children and limited desire to spend all his time raising campaign money.

Instead, Ryan is running a campaign of a different sort, one his party has so far refused to adopt: He is determined to persuade colleagues to get serious about eliminating the national debt, even if it means openly broaching overhauls of Medicare and Social Security.

He speaks in apocalyptic terms, saying the debt is "completely unsustainable" and warning that "it will crash our economy." He urges fellow politicians, and voters, to stop pretending that this problem will go away on its own...

The full piece can be found here.

From CNN.com:

Bristol Palin’s former fiance publicly apologized to her family Tuesday in a statement to PEOPLE magazine, saying that some of his comments about the Palin family made in the wake of the 2008 presidential campaign are not totally true...

'Last year, after Bristol and I broke up, I was unhappy and a little angry. Unfortunately, against my better judgment, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true,' Johnston told CNN’s sister publication PEOPLE Magazine. 'I have already privately apologized to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were public, I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologize.'

I'm looking forward to hearing the apologies from all of the media outlets and shows that gave Johnston loads of undue publicity and fame when he was openly bashing former Governor Palin...but I am not holding my breath.

“Media criticism gets under this president’s skin and he lets it show more than any president we’ve seen in a long time.”
–Chuck Todd (6/13/2010) 

Yesterday, during an enlightening roundtable on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, NBC's Chuck Todd stated the above quote in regards to the president’s response to Matt Lauer’s recent questions about the president's reaction to the BP oil spill. That was the response where Obama noted that he wanted to “know whose ass to kick”. In the roundtable, Todd noted that Obama’s response to Lauer about the government’s response did seem to be a direct rebuttal to criticism that he has recently received from the media.

During the 2008 campaign, the media was often overtly “friendly” towards Obama and that “friendliness” extended into Obama’s early time in the White House. It now seems like the media has turned aggressively against Obama for his failure to respond effectively to the BP oil crisis. A recent Washington Post article entitled “Why We’ll Miss Helen Thomas” noted that the press corps has been tougher lately in asking questions about the spill, a welcome development for those who have watched the White House avoid having to answer difficult questions in the past. The media is now questioning Obama on a more routine basis and President Obama seems to be taking it roughly and reacting to it aggressively.

The rebuttal to Lauer's question about "kicking butt" that Todd talked about was not the only recent time when Obama seemed to be directly making decisions as a reaction to criticism. As Meredith Jessup noted in a blog post Thursday night, the president only recently decided to meet with BP executives after the president's press secretary was hammered with questions on that issue. "After defending for days President Obama's decision not to speak directly with BP chief executive Tony Hayward," a recent Washington Post story began, "the White House has now invited -- or rather summoned -- senior executives from the oil giant to Washington." This, again, seems to be the Obama administration making decisions about handling the oil spill in a reactionary way. This meeting should have been held a long time ago right after the damage of the oil spill became evident, not over 50 days after it happened.

The president is set to give a speech to the nation tomorrow night about the BP oil spill. My hope is that he uses the opportunity of the address to be proactive in managing the crisis and less reactive. Making decisions to quell media criticism is not enough. The president needs to show that he is charge of the situation and working effectively to manage the crisis without coming across as defensive as he has in the past. We need a proactive president, not a reactive one and one who can take criticism in stride.

For the past several hours, on the Huffington Post homepage, there has been a link to a story about football star Tim Tebow. The headline, which focuses on HuffPo sports includes the following phrase "Tim Tebow 'Nazi Rally'", a phrase that is surrounded by ellipses (...) on both sides.
 
When one clicks on the full headline (that reads "Big Ben Apologizes.. Tim Tebow 'Nazi Rally'.. Ex-QB Arrested.. Racist MLB Tweet.. Usain Dominant"), a viewer is then sent to the Huffington Post sports page. One of the top headlines on that page is "Radio Host Slanders Tim Tebow: Party 'Looked like Nazi Rally'.

It seems to me that the headline on the homepage of the Huffington Post is both cruel and demeaning to both Mr. Tebow and anyone who attended his draft party. The homepage headline fails to note that this 'Nazi Party' accusation was a meanspirited remark made about Mr. Tebow, a remark that the person who made it has since apologized for. In fact, if a usual viewer was just scrolling down the page, they would likely get a false impression of this party and Mr. Tebow.

Although I understand that strong headlines will bring the Huffington Post more page views, its unfortunate homepage headline about Tebow was both misleading and irresponsible.

“In 1926, during the decade known famously as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, the pastor of the largest Protestant church in the land- a man who was also a successful newspaper publisher, radio broadcasting pioneer, and rising conservative cultural star—shot an unarmed man to death in his church office.”
-David Stokes

Townhall.com columnist David Stokes wrote the above passage in the preface to his new book “Apparent Danger: The Pastor of America’s First Megachurch and the Texas Murder Trial of the Decade in the 1920’s.” In that book, Stokes wrote about the life of Reverend Doctor J. Frank Norris, who shot and killed an unarmed man. Norris was an extremely controversial pastor who often used his pulpit to criticize prominent members of his community and the Catholic Church. The story of Norris’ rise in the church, his fiery accusations against local leaders and the murder he committed is a fascinating story and Stokes explores it well in his new book. [# More #]

In the book, Norris is presented as a controversial and charismatic church leader. Stokes wrote that Norris knew how to communicate effectively and how to build the support of his congregation. “Even critics”, Stokes wrote, “reluctantly acknowledged his skills as a preacher-orator and admirers marveled at the way he could work an audience...he would become the undisputed leader of American fundamentalism."

However, his ability to captivate an audience was not the only thing that brought Norris publicity. In July of 1926, he was also responsible for the death of Mr. Chipps, an unarmed man who visited Norris' office to criticize the reverend for attacking leaders in the community. After a confrontation, Stokes wrote that “J. Frank Norris, the leading fundamentalist in the nation, heir to William Jennings Bryan himself…fired three shots into the massive frame of Dexter Elliot Chipps.”  Chipps died shortly therafter.

After that encounter, the book focuses on the case against Norris and the courtroom drama that ensued as Norris was charged with murder. The title of the book itself refers to a defense Norris’ legal team used to attempt to get their client set free. Stokes wrote that Norrris' lawyers believed that “if the defense could prove that J. Frank Norris ‘thought’ he was in danger, even if there was no actual evidence found afterward, he would go free.”

“Apparent Danger” is based on the true story of Reverend J. Frank Norris of Texas. It is a fascinating read about a pastor who seemingly loved media attention and controversy and found himself entangled in both after he shot a man to death in his own office.  

For more information about “Apparent Danger”, click here.

In his victory speech after the passage of health care reform, President Obama stood before the American people and spoke about the importance of the health care vote. In dramatic terms, President Obama said that "we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges. We proved that this government -- a government of the people and by the people -- still works for the people." While Obama points to his bill's success as a victory for the people, it looks like many people would challenge that notion.

According to a recently released CNN poll, a large majority of people opposed the health care bill before its passgae. An article on CNN.com noted that the "poll found that 59 percent of those surveyed opposed the bill, and 39 percent favored it." The article later noted that "56 percent said the bill gives the government too much involvement in health care." A recent Rasmussen reports poll showed additional negative feelings about the bill before it was passed. According to that site, their poll found that "Fifty-seven percent (57%) believe that if the plan passes, the cost of health care will go up" and that "most voters (54%) believe that passage of the plan will hurt the quality of care."

If the American people are not the winners in this debate (and judging from their disapproval of the bill, they don't seem to be), one wonders who won out. It doesn't seem that the Congressional leaders who helped make this bill happen are the winners either. The Drudge Report recently linked to a CBS poll that showed that the approval rating of the Senate Majority Leader is currently at 8% and the approval rating of the Speaker of the House is at 11%. Neither of those public advocates of Obamacare seem to be winners in this debate, at least in the public eye.[# More #]

With this major piece of legislation, many pundits likely see President Obama as a winner for getting his reform through. Obama, who  had previously stated that he would "rather be a really good one-term president rather than a mediocre two-term president" according to ABC News, did have a political victory in getting health care passed. That would be an honest assessment of the situation. Saying, as he did after the health care vote, that the bill's passage is "a victory for the American people" and that it proves that the government "still works for the people" are not. 

According to the CNN.com poll noted above, less than 4 out of every ten people supported this health care bill. The passage of this bill was a lot of things but a victory for the American people is not one of them.

From CNN.com:

The community organizing group ACORN announced Monday it is closing its operations amid falling revenues.

The announcement came a day after the board of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now met and approved the steps required "to responsibly manage the process of bringing its operations to a close over the coming months," an ACORN statement read.

The group's remaining state affiliates and field offices will close by April 1, and a plan will be developed to pay its debts, the statement said.

To read the full CNN.com article, click here.

Although it has not been officially confirmed, the Hill newspaper recently reported that there are signs that health care may not get a vote this week, much to the disappointment of many on the left who wanted to get this bill passed soon.

TheHill article noted the following:

House Democratic leaders on Wednesday night said the long-awaited Congressional Budget Office score of the reconciliation bill will not come out until Thursday, forcing an acknowledgement that a Saturday healthcare vote is likely off the table.

This comes only a few days after the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that "this is the week" for the vote, according to the Washington Post. That announcement came a few days after it was announced that Obama would delay an overseas trip to work on health care reform. It is possible that this could still be the week for a health care vote in the House but it is looking less likely by the day. [# More #]

However, if the bill is not voted on this week, that would not be a major surprise because this White House has previously created plenty of health care deadlines that fell apart. CNN.com recently featured an article about many of the important Obama health care deadlines that have been missed over the past several months. (The article reminded me of the fact that Obama actually wanted health care bills in the House and Senate passed BEFORE the August recess.)

I'm glad that so many deadlines have been missed without a bill being passed because I do not support the health care legislation going through the Congress. However, the Obama administration seems to have a self-defeating proclivity towards setting major deadlines, then ignoring them when they pass and then setting new URGENT deadlines.

If the Obama administration spent some of their time working on bipartisan health care legislation that works rather than on creating deadlines that fall apart, they would likely have a health care bill passed by now...or if not now, they could have set a deadline for the end of this week, worked towards that goal with Republicans and Democrats alike and gotten it done. 

Or, considering their track record, maybe not.