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As we were about to publish we discovered a great post from Ed Morrissey about the ridiculous AP poll showing the president with 60% approval. It is now plain the news organizations do not poll for information, they poll to help Obama.
… Oddly — or perhaps not — the AP report doesn’t include a link back to the survey’s raw data. In order to find it, one has to go to GfK’s site for its AP polls. The partisan breakdown in the sample is found about halfway through the PDF, and it explains a great deal about how Obama managed to get such a high boost in this poll while others showed shallow bumps that had already started to subside.
The Dem/Rep/Ind breakdown in this poll is 46/29/4, as AP assigned most of the leaners to the parties. That is a 17-point gap, more than twice what was seen in the 2008 actual popular vote that elected Obama. It only gets worse when independents are assigned properly. When taking out the leaners, the split becomes — I’m not kidding — 35/18/27. Oh, and another 20% “don’t know.” That’s significantly worse than the March poll, in which the proper D/R/I was 29/20/34, and far beyond their post-midterm sample of 31/28/26. It’s pretty easy to get Obama to 60% when Republicans are undersampled by almost half.
Frankly, this sample is so bad that no real insights can be gleaned from it.
In the Jewish World Review, Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains that Al Qaeda is not as dangerous as the Muslim Brotherhood.
…Unlike Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood has evolved and learned the hard way that the use of violence will be met with superior violence by state actors. The clever thing to do, it now turns out, was to be patient and invest in a bottom-up movement rather than a commando structure that risked being wiped out by stronger forces. Besides, the gradualist approach is far more likely to win the prize of state power. All that Khomeini did before he came to power in Iran was to preach the merits of a society based on Islamic law. He did not engage in terrorism. Yet he and his followers took over Iran — a feat far greater than bin Laden ever achieved. In Iran the violence came later.
The point is that fighting violent extremists is only part of the battle; perhaps the easier part. The bigger challenge may be to deal with those Islamists who are willing to play a longer game.
In the West, bin Laden’s ignominious death in a Pakistani hideaway has frequently been contrasted with the mass protests that have swept the Middle East in recent months. Policymakers and commentators have drawn the conclusion that the Arab Spring has triumphed over jihadism, setting the region on a high road to democracy. This is too hasty a conclusion. Let’s take Egypt as an example. …
In the WSJ, James Taranto discusses some of Bin Laden’s lesser-known political positions. He was a big fan of Jimmy Carter’s views on Israel.
The New York Times, reporting on the intelligence haul from Osama bin Laden’s house, paints a picture of the mass murderer’s politics:
In October, . . . Bin Laden issued two audio statements urging help for victims of floods in Pakistan. “We are in need of a big change in the method of relief work because the number of victims is great due to climate changes in modern times,” he said.
In 2007, he complained that Democratic control of Congress had not ended the war in Iraq, a fact he attributed to the pernicious influence of “big corporations.” In other messages he commented on the writings of Noam Chomsky, the leftist professor at M.I.T., and praised former President Jimmy Carter’s book supporting Palestinian rights.
So he was a global warmist who opposed the Iraq war, hated big corporations, was a fan of Noam Chomsky and thought Jimmy Carter was right on Israel. On the other hand, we understand he was more conservative on social issues. …
Also in the WSJ, Bret Stephens talks more about Noam Chomsky’s poisonous thoughts.
…Yet when it comes to making excuses for monsters…Among the subjects of Mr. Chomsky’s solicitude have been Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson (whom he described as a “relatively apolitical liberal”), the Khmer Rouge (at the height of the killing fields), and Hezbollah (whose military-style cap he cheerfully donned on a visit to Lebanon last year).
As for bin Laden, Mr. Chomsky asks, rhetorically, “how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s.”
…So it is that Mr. Chomsky can be the recipient of over 20 honorary degrees, including from Harvard, Cambridge and the University of Chicago. None of these degrees, as far as I know, was conferred for Mr. Chomsky’s political musings, but neither did those musings provoke any apparent misgivings about the fitness of granting the award. So Mr. Chomsky is the purveyor of some controversial ideas about this or that aspect of American power. So what?…
The Investor’s Business Daily editors comment on the latest maneuver by the government to limit drilling, this time, natural gas.
The Energy Department wants to find ways to make hydraulic fracturing, a fast-growing method of extracting natural gas, safer and cleaner. Say, isn’t that how the administration justified its offshore drilling ban?
…The safety mantra was raised once again last Thursday when Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the appointment of a seven-member panel to study hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as “fracking,” and come up with new safety standards that address concerns raised by environmentalists.
…We believe the safety issue is a cover for the Obama administration’s ideologically driven animus toward fossil fuels and its deliberate campaign to raise energy prices — and thereby to make its favored “green” alternatives look more competitive and attractive.
James Delingpole, in the Telegraph Blogs, UK, blogs about the exciting possibilities for natural gas. Remember what he says about watermelons – green on the outside and red inside.
Imagine if we were to discover a new form of cheap, clean energy so abundant that it will provide our needs at least for the next two centuries, freeing us from the pervasive early 21st century neurosis of having to worry about “peak oil” or “conserving scarce resources”, causing a worldwide economic boom and with the added side-benefit of creating more fertiliser so that we can not only heat our homes more cheaply than ever before but also eat more cheaply than ever before.
…Actually we don’t need to imagine for the miracle is already here. It’s called Shale Gas and is the subject of a thrilling new report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation by Matt Ridley with a foreword by Professor Freeman Dyson. Neither Ridley nor Dyson is in much doubt that shale gas is the answer to our prayers. …
…the economic arguments in its favour are too powerful for it to be ignored (especially in countries like Poland, which has massive shale gas reserves and, like most of the former Eastern Bloc really has no desire to be blackmailed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia any longer than is necessary). But what we are going to see in the next few months and years are very concerted efforts by green campaigners and their sympathisers in the EU to besmirch the name of shale gas in favour of their preferred (and – of course – disastrously expensive and environmentally destructive) power source, renewable energy. …
Steve Daniels, in Crane’s Chicago Business, reports on efforts to keep big businesses in Illinois.
Gov. Pat Quinn says the state’s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity is looking at ways to keep Sears Holdings Corp. from leaving Illinois.
…Mr. Quinn has been showering incentive money on companies that promise to keep their companies in Illinois, including Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. in Libertyville, truck maker Navistar International Corp. of Warrenville and Chicago-based wireless carrier U.S. Cellular Corp.
Motorola announced Friday it will keep its headquarters in Libertyville after the state promised the company $100 million in tax breaks over the next decade. Also Friday, a bill signed by Mr. Quinn will provide a $19-million tax break to Continental Tire, which operates a facility in Downstate Mount Vernon. …
Today we have more of the Top of the Ticket’s Late Night One-Liners.
SNL: a number of new conspiracy theories are surfacing claiming that Osama Bin Laden is not really dead. Which means Barack Obama will go down in history as the first black person ever to have to prove that he killed someone. …
… Leno: Exxon Mobil claims only 6% of its profits come from gas sales. Right, so apparently 94% comes from the sale of Slim Jims and Dr Pepper. …
… Fallon: For the second year, Jacob and Isabella are the most popular baby names in the U.S. The least popular baby name? Donald Sheen Bin Laden.