The Nature of Things

Remember a couple of weeks ago, before the presidential debate, when all the political polls, even the very right-wing ones like Fox News and Rasmussen, showed President Obama leading in the race? This had been the case for several weeks and the right-wingers were going crazy! "The polls are biased!" they cried. "They are weighted in favor of Obama!" "The pollsters are asking the wrong questions!" "They are interviewing the wrong people - too many Democrats, too many people with cell phones!" Now, there's been almost a complete turnaround in the polls. Nearly all of them either show Romney leading or basically tied with President Obama. And what do we hear from all those whiners about bias in polling? Crickets. They are all too busy chortling about what a terrible debater President Obama is and how Super Mitt is headed for victory! You don't think the whiners could have possibly been insincere in their critique of pollsters, do you? You d...

The latest thing that the right-wing has its knickers in a twist about is President Obama's trip to South America. How could he take a "Rio vacation", they scream, when the world is in turmoil? Never mind that the diplomatic trip - which is actually part of the job description of being president - has been planned for months. No, these bozos want him to drop everything and hole up in the White House to handle the Japanese earthquake, the tsunami, the nuclear power plant leaks, and now, the military action against Libya. Apparently they assume that he is out of contact with his administration and with the world when he's in Brazil. But then they never did really understand the way technology works. Earlier this week, these same people got all hot and bothered because President Obama took time to fill out his brackets for the NCAA basketball tournament. And, of course, the idea of him actually taking time to play golf just about sends them over the edge. Funny, I ...