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Six Percent of Separation

The President's approval rating has fallen to a little less than half of the public.  I rather imagine he worries about that.  


When he came into office, we were losing about 75,000 jobs a month.  The banks had become Ponzi schemes, and were bankrupt.  General Motors and Chrysler were going down the tubes.  Enormous government loans saved their arses, but the Congress and the the President--and the public--refused to do what really needed to be done:  get out of those enormously expensive wars, and invest heavily in rebuilding this country for a new century:  education, roads, sewers, green energy, trains, bridges, and attracting the best people available, from everywhere, to science, engineering, and the whole educational system.


Of course people are dubious about the job the President is doing!  People need jobs!  Our prisons are filled with people who smoked pot, and sold it to other people.  We didn't object to huge, hopeless wars, and what they will continue to cost for a generation.  The I-35 bridge over the Mississippi, here in Minnesota, fell down, and we are aware that our road systems, and out utility systems, and our schools were stagnant.  Religious fundamentalists say the King James Bible ought to be taught as an alternative to science.  


We have two political parties; only two.  They have read the history of World War I, and dug trenches everywhere, and set up snipers in the trees and church steeples.  


What an absurd mess.  


The President is in trouble.  But keep in mind that public approval of the job Congress is doing is not 40 or 45%:  it is about 6%.  Six!


So here is some advice:  pay no attention to what Congress says about how the President is doing.  He has been trying to get them up out of those trenches so they can talk to each other.  No luck.  


"Why?", they ask.  "Look at his awful ratings!"  


Six of every hundred people you see, every day--in the grocery, at work, mowing their lawns, going by on the sidewalk, and at the stop light--think Congress is doing a good job.  Six of every hundred people have no clue about what is happening.  


Drive defensively!

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