The last two times I remember this happening -- with Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s and New York City Mayor David Dinkins in the early 1990s -- it at least took a few years for exasperated establishment media liberals to blame the system for a favored politician's difficulties in achieving his agenda, and to call the country and Gotham, respectively, "ungovernable." Afterwards, Ronald Reagan and Rudy Giuliani proved the whiners spectacularly wrong.

Matt Yglesias at Think Progress is years ahead of those prior hand-wringers. A bit less than 11 months into the Obama administration, the Think Progress blogger considered by many to be one of the far left's opinion leaders is moaning about how tough it has recently become to get anything done. Poor baby.

As Obama's poll numbers plunge, and statist health care comes down to final pre-Christmas votes, Yglesias reprises the lament that the system is the problem (HT Instapundit and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air):

Despite all the campaign assurances that he would see the Afghan war effort through, liberals are incensed that Obama is following through on his pledge to, you know, win. The latest lefty to excoriate the president for pursuing America's enemies abroad is veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who today lamented that Obama must now be dubbed a "war president."

"Obama should remember his own battle cry and tell the hawks: 'Yes, we can,' " Thomas wrote today in her syndicated column for Hearst Newspapers. Maybe he should also remember his insistence that Afghanistan "is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity."

And he has remembered those wise words. But his supporters, who flocked to the "good war" cause as way to contrast Democratic national security efforts with the supposedly ill-intentioned Iraq war--and rip on George Bush in the process--have exhausted the political usefulness of Afghanistan, and are now calling for withdrawal.

White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, recently ridiculed a Gallup poll which showed the President's approval ratings at a record low for this stage of his presidency, for seemingly no other reason than they showed the President in a negative light.  Gibbs referred to the Gallup polling organization as a wildly fluctuating EKG, labeling their results as the equivalent of ‘a 6-year-old with a crayon.'

Predictably, this administration has managed to throw a temper tantrum at every instance of failure that has defined them.  The only surprise here, being that Gibbs was capable of taking the pacifier out of his mouth long enough to make the analogy.

On the other hand, it was mere months ago that Gibbs himself used Gallup poll numbers to demonstrate support for President Obama's economic stimulus plan - a stimulus plan that a 6-year-old with a crayon would have voted ‘no' on.

Gibbs Gallup glorifying after the break...

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs lashed out at Gallup polling today for releasing poll data that the administration does not like. The most recent Gallup poll shows President Obama's approval ratings at 47 percent, the lowest rating on record at this point in any presidency.

"If I was a heart patient and Gallup was my EKG, I'd visit my doctor," Gibbs told reporters today, referring to recent fluctuations in the polling company's reported presidential approval ratings. As of November 30, Gallup reported Obama's favorable rating at 51 percent, with 42 percent responding unfavorably. The latter rose to 46 percent as of Sunday.

"I'm sure a 6-year-old with a crayon could do something not unlike that. I don't put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is the daily Gallup trend," Gibbs added.

New York Times health care cheerleader-reporter David Herszenhorn seems unhappy that Republicans continue to oppose Obama-care -- especially John McCain, who Obama beat in the 2008 election.

Herszenhorn really “cranked” up the melodrama (and old man insults?) in his Monday morning post on the Times's “Prescriptions” blog, “The Crankiness of the Defeated," turning a hum-drum event -- the 73-year-old Sen. John McCain challenging Obama on health care -- into a strange anti-Republican hit piece.

As political opera goes, the libretto seemed to be the vengeance of the vanquished.

With President Obama at the Capitol on Sunday for a meeting with the Democratic caucus, his nemesis from last year’s presidential race, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, stood in a corridor just a few steps away facing a gaggle of reporters and television cameras.

....

It was less aria than huff-and-puff. He and Mr. McConnell suggested that the fact that Mr. Obama was meeting alone with Democrats was evidence that hyper-partisanship continues in Washington and that the president had been powerless to stop it.

(Of course, Mr. McConnell, Mr. McCain and their Republican colleagues do their own part to contribute to the continuing acrimony, but that went unspoken.)

As if he really expected Republicans to issue a mea culpa at a partisan press conference.

New York Times readers were treated to a rare dose of sympathy for Sarah Palin and her new book yesterday. Columnist Stanley Fish reviewed "Going Rogue", and cast it in a generally appealing light, while dispelling some of the most trumpeted criticisms of the former Alaska Governor's autobiography.

Fish introduces his review with a humorous anecdote poking fun at some of the more deranged Palin-haters: Upon asking a customer service representative in a Manhattan bookstore where he could find "Going Rogue," the employee "looked at me as if I had requested a copy of 'Mein Kampf' signed in blood by the author, and directed me to the nearest Barnes and Noble, where, presumably, readers of dubious taste and sensibility could find what they wanted."

Far from conducting an AP-style fact-check of "Going Rogue," Fish notes that autobiographies, unlike biographies, are intended to promote the author. "[A]utobiographers cannot lie because anything they say will truthfully serve their project, which, again, is not to portray the facts, but to portray themselves."

The Obama presidency is, for better or worse, the most media saturated administration in the nation's history. Due at least in part to revolutionary changes in the sharing of information, but equally abetted by the president's media-hungry personality and style of governing, Obama's face is just about everywhere these days.

And Americans have noticed. In an attempt to land a spot on a DC-based reality show, the so-called state dinner party-crashers, the Salahis, went where they knew the cameras would be: the White House.

The Obama administration has pursued a relentless media strategy by trumpeting the president on traditional and new media outlets at every opportunity. It's tech-savvy staff has allowed the president to market his message to a wide range of demographics. The strategy was a cornerstone of Obama's presidential campaign, and he has adopted it as a style of governing.

Norah O'Donnell just can't stop condescending to supporters of Sarah Palin.  Appearing on Morning Joe today, the MSNBC correspondent rehashed a line she has used before: that fans of Sarah Palin are just too darn busy to know what's happening in the world.  According to O'Donnell, Sarah supporters don't have "30 minutes to an hour to read the newspaper."

As I reported here, O'Donnell sounded the same theme a couple weeks ago, when interviewing Palin fans waiting on line at a book-signing in Michigan.  By coincidence, Jackie Seal, a high school senior and Palin supporter whom Norah had ambushed with some prepared notes, was a guest last night on Right Angle, the local TV show this NewsBuster hosts.  We discussed O'Donnell's condescension, Jackie making the point that most supporters are well-informed about Palin's positions.

View the Right Angle segment after the break.

When O'Donnell began dispensing her slur on Sarah supporters, Mika Brzezinski tried to warn her of the reaction sure to come . .  .

A liberal Washington Post columnist laments today of the loss of civility in the public discourse. Strange that he is suddenly outraged that Americans would dare call Obama a socialist or a fascist, given that Bush-Hitler comparisons were widespread during the previous administration.

Liberals in the media spent the summer and early fall bemoaning signs at town hall protests and tea party rallies calling Obama a socialist or communist comparing him to Hitler (incidentally, many of these signs were actually created by supporters of uber-leftist Lyndon LaRouche, as reported by Seton Motley here and here). These pundits had no such admonitions for signs at anti-war rallies during the Bush administration comparing him to Hitler and the Devil, and calling the president a fascist.

So the Post's E.J. Dionne's complaints about the loss of civility in the debate over federal politics fit right in with the narrative liberal pundits have been pushing since last year: comparing an American president to a murderous dictator is unacceptable...if that president is a Democrat.

Twice in the past week, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has on his Countdown show tried to dismiss the popularity of Sarah Palin’s book Going Rogue by mentioning discounts like Newsmax’s promotion that offers the book for $4.97 to new subscribers. Olbermann first raised the issue on the Thursday, November 19, show, as he mentioned rumors of high sales numbers. Olbermann: "Publishing industry rumors, first week sales more than half a million. No idea if any of them were not at these 50 to 75 percent discounts."

On Monday’s show, during a discussion with MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe, Olbermann again tried to credit the popularity of Palin’s book to discounts after Wolffe commented that she would soon have millions of dollars:

KEITH OLBERMANN: Millions, she got it upfront, right? Because she's not going to get millions if they're selling this book at Newsmax for $4.97. You and I, as authors, understand: Get it upfront, right?

RICHARD WOLFFE: We would hope that Bob Barnett did his job in that way. But look, you know, she is turning out the crowds. This book is selling, and let's hope people are reading it.

OLBERMANN: It's $4.97! If we sold books for $4.97, they'd be stacked up out here and people would be taking them as they went home.

Also on the November 19 show, the Countdown host suggested there was "tackiness" in Palin’s plan to visit Fort Hood and donate book proceeds to victims of the massacre there, and quoted a Palin critic who compared her to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, as Olbermann called the comparison "apt." Olbermann:

It doesn't matter whether it's Spider-Man giving the fist bump to President Obama or New Jersey kids singing Dear Leader's praises, the left likes to indoctrinate the young. The latest example is Mad Magazine trying to make former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin look foolish and "dangerously delusional."

Mad magazine, which no doubt you are surprised even exists anymore, decided the way to get attention is make fun of Palin. The January 2010 issue bashes Palin as "Blunder Woman" in part of a cover story devoted to the "20 Dumbest, People, Events and Things" of 2009. The magazine criticized her for "going ‘rogue,'" saying "‘rogue' is the Eskimo word for ‘stupid.'"

The Palin item depicts her in a skimpy Wonder Woman-esque outfit standing behind three different comic book covers. Those range from her tangling with the Joker, depicted as David Letterman, for his joking about her daughter to "The War of 2012: Part 1 of 36." Here's the text they included with the item:

Wednesday’s Fox and Friends on FNC passed on a piece of information not likely to receive much attention from the mainstream media – that Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue is so far outpacing Hillary Clinton’s Living History in sales. Co-anchor Alisyn Camerota relayed that "now there's a comparison between how Sarah Palin's book has done in the first week and how Hillary Clinton's memoir did the first week, and the winner is: Sarah Palin."

Co-anchor Clayton Morris, noting that Clinton had received a larger advance than Palin, elaborated on the number of first-week sales: "A lot of the number of sales, so far here, the numbers, Sarah Palin 700,000 for Going Rogue. Hillary Clinton's Living History got 600,000. But maybe Hillary's Clinton's sort of laughing all the way to the bank because she made – look at that number there – for her advance from the book, from the publisher, $8 million. Sarah Palin got $5 million."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Wednesday, November 25, Fox and Friends on FNC:

Life was hell under Bush.  But hang in there: things'll get better under Obama.

Class dismissed: that's really all you need to know about the latest Time cover story—The Decade From Hell And Why The Next One Will Be Better.  But just to drive home the Manichean message, Time editor Rick Stengel and Andy Serwer [of Time stable-mate Fortune], who wrote the cover story, appeared on Morning Joe today.

Of course there's the inconvenient detail about Barack Obama having been elected in this decade.  But not to worry.  Serwer suggests we "see Barack Obama being elected as the beginning of the next decade."

Excerpts from the pro-Obama babble . . .

The ClimateGate email leak has demonstrated in full force a glaring double standard in the mainstream media's coverage of leaked information. Too often, liberal media outlets jump at the chance to damage conservative figures by publishing sensitive information, but refuse to publish such information if it discredits or hinders the left's efforts.

As Clay Waters reported yesterday, Andew Revkin, who writes for the New York Times's Dot Earth blog, refused to publish emails from Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit showing efforts to manipulate climate data and marginalize global warming skeptics.

Said Revkin, "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here."

Revkin is correct that the emails were never intended for the public eye, contained private communications, and were released by hackers who violated the law in obtaining them. But apparently this standard for publication of such documents does not apply to information about Sarah Palin.

An unsigned CNN.com article on Friday noted that the Senate Ethics Committee had reproved Senator Roland Burris “for actions and statements reflecting unfavorably upon the Senate,” but did not directly mention the Illinois senator’s affiliation with the Democratic Party. The article did mention that Burris was “the only African-American U.S. senator.”

The first two paragraphs from the CNN Political Ticker story excerpted the letter that the Senate committee sent to the successor to President Obama: “The Senate Ethics Committee issued a letter Friday admonishing embattled Illinois Sen. Roland Burris ‘for actions and statements reflecting unfavorably upon the Senate’ in connection with his controversial appointment by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. ‘While the committee did not find that the evidence before it supported any actionable violations of law, senators must meet a much higher standard of conduct,’ the letter stated.”

One year ago tonight, Thursday, November 20 -- like today, the Thursday one week before Thanksgiving -- MSNBC ridiculously plastered “BREAKING NEWS” on-screen for video of Sarah Palin at a turkey farm just after pardoning one, running more than three minutes of video of some turkeys being slaughtered by a man in the background behind her. Palin, then just weeks off the presidential campaign trail, was simply answering questions from reporters in her role as Governor of Alaska.

Filling in as host of Countdown, David Shuster scolded Palin: “She neglected to notice what was happening directly behind her -- in clear view of the television cameras. We've blurred out the goriest parts, but here's her interview, from start to finish.”

As the video ran, MSNBC displayed rotating chyrons with hyperbolic declarations, such as:

GOV. SARAH PALIN KEEPS TALKING WHILE TURKEYS GET SLAUGHTERED BEHIND HER

GOV. PALIN APPARENTLY OBLIVIOUS TO TURKEY CARNAGE OVER HER SHOULDER

H/t MRC's Jeff Poor. I urge people to read the blog entry that Jackie Seals, the impressive young lady that O'Donnell confronted, has written about her experience.  Not only does it provide fascinating background material about just what a set-up O'Donnell devised, it also catches Norah out in a fib.

As you'll note from an earlier update at the foot of this item, after O'Donnell began catching heat for her stunt, she went back on the air to defend herself.  Among other things, responding to charges she had confronted a young girl, O'Donnell twice claimed that her interview subject "voted in the last election."

Just one problem:  Jackie informs us that she is . . . 17.  Maybe Norah got confused with ACORN voting standards, but 16-year old conservatives [the age she would presumably have been at last year's election] don't go to the polls.

--------------------------

We all remember how back during the '08 campaign, MSM reporters would challenge people attending Obama rallies with uncomfortable truths about their candidate, along the lines "would you still support him if you knew he had the most liberal voting record in the Senate?" Or not.  I certainly can't remember any MSMer confronting an Obama supporter in such a way.

But let people line up to express their admiration for Sarah Palin . . .

Newsweek's effort to take a stab at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on the heels of her book tour appears to be backfiring - at least from a legal standpoint.

Recently, the latest cover of Newsweek took an image of Palin that originally appeared in Runner's World magazine. Palin has criticized the posting on her Facebook page, as NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard reported. "The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now," she wrote.

And Newsweek's Jon Meacham insists the magazine did nothing wrong - that this is just the nature of what they do at Newsweek.

"We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do," Meacham said to the Huffington Post on Nov. 17. "We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard."

HLN host and "The View" panelist Joy Behar doesn't care much for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and it's obvious from her language.

Just a day after snidely attacking former Miss California Carrie Prejean, Behar dedicated the top of her Nov. 17 program to go after Palin and insult her, calling her "incoherent."

"It wasn't just one interview. It was a series of incoherent sentences and lack of any kind of -- it was, I'm sorry, Ann," Behar said. "She'd never -- her syntax alone would drive you crazy."

Behar's guest, conservative columnist Ann Coulter noted Behar was toeing the media line and Coulter responded to the criticism Palin had received from media types who were trying to interpret this as a pre-presidential campaign book tour.

CNN's Rick Sanchez hosted a forum of 'average joes' yesterday in a sort of focus group on Sarah Palin. CNN did not feel, however, that it needed to invite any Palin supporters. Despite claims that the group accurately represented American opinion, its responses demonstrated a total disconnect from actual public sentiment.

Sanchez, shown right in a file photo, asked the group to inform viewers of their political and party affiliations, concluding that there was "a pretty good cross-section" of Americans participating. He then asked about Palin. None of the viewers said they would vote for her in a presidential run, and none said they plan on purchasing her new book (video and transcript below the fold - h/t Townhall).

A screening of the show's guests would hardly be a surprise given Sanchez's history of playing fast and loose with the facts when conservatives are involved. He touted one of the quotes falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh, and later apologized for his mistake, adding to his long list of retractions. He has blamed the murder of a police officer on "right wing radio" and berated Fox News for alleged bias while ignoring CNN's.

Sanchez's coverage of Palin herself has not exactly been stellar. He suggested after she stepped down as governor that she might be pregnant.

On Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez previewed an exclusive interview with Levi Johnston on the CBS entertainment show, The Insider: “Levi Johnston says he is winning the war of words between Sarah Palin and him. We’ll hear from him.” Later, correspondent for The Insider, Chris Jacobs, declared: “Sarah Palin lashing out at Levi and now Levi fires back.”

Rodriguez has conducted three exclusive interviews with the estranged father of Palin’s grandson in the last six months, the latest on October 29. In The Insider interview, Johnston is given the opportunity to continue his vicious, personal, and unsubstantiated attacks against the former Alaska governor, claiming: “I think she’s going out and talking and she’s just digging a bigger hole for herself....I just look at her in disgust. It’s almost funny that she’s like 46 years old and she’s battling a 19-year-old and I’m winning and I’m telling the truth. She’s lying and losing.”

Sarah Palin, in an interview that is a part of the lead up to the Nov. 17 release of her new book "Going Rogue," appeared on Oprah Winfrey's TV show on Nov. 16.  Aside from the questions about the campaign, she expressed her irritation with "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric, or as she referred to her - "the perky one."

"Now, obviously, you've why didn't you just name some books or magazines?" Winfrey asked.

Palin explained that she didn't want to come off as unprofessional, but she detected an elitist vibe from Couric with the infamous question about her reading habits.

New York Times lead book critic (and avowed political liberal) Michiko Kakutani does the expected demolition job on Sarah Palin's new memoir, "Going Rogue." But in her rush to bash Palin as having an image of "an easily caricatured ignoramus" (a caricature in itself), Kakutani unwittingly made an anti-Obama argument.

"Going Rogue," the title of Sarah Palin's erratic new memoir, comes from a phrase used by a disgruntled McCain aide to describe her going off-message during the campaign: among other things, for breaking with the campaign over its media strategy and its decision to pull out of Michigan, and for speaking out about reports that the Republican Party had spent more than $150,000 on fancy designer duds for her and her family. In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign that plucked her out of Alaska, anointed her the Republican vice-presidential nominee and made her one of the most talked about women on the planet -- someone who could command a reported $5 million for writing this book.

Kakutani took a questionable angle of attack on Palin, mocking her supposed lack of experience:

Appearing on Monday’s CBS Early Show to discuss Sarah Palin’s upcoming book tour, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer dismissed the former vice presidential candidate’s political ambitions: “I think she’s going to sell a lot of books. I think she’ll be a great attraction out, you know, as an amusement....But I can’t imagine that she has much future in politics. I really don’t.”

Early Show co-host Harry Smith began by asking Schieffer about Palin’s criticism of the McCain campaign in her book, ‘Going Rogue.’ Schieffer responded: “Well, this is Sarah Palin’s turn to get even....I don’t think it’s going to work.... it’s kind of like a baseball player going into a slump and blaming the manager or blaming the bat boy or blaming the fans or something.”

Schieffer went on to write Palin’s political obituary: “But I don’t think it’s going to help re-establish her as a, you know, as a political candidate. I – my guess is she’s not ever going to run for anything and I think if she did, I don’t think she would get very far.” Even Smith seemed to think that was premature, replying in a surprised manner: “Really?”

Too often "objectivity in journalism" is code for agreeing with the left. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz demonstrated this sentiment in his profile of Fox News Channel's Shep Smith.

Kurtz lauded Smith as an "outspoken newsman at the network defined by high-decibel conservatives, a stance that has earned him respect even from some Fox-hating liberals."

But was it really his "newsman" status that has earned him this respect, or is it the numerous instances in which Smith has agreed with the left? Kurtz documents a number of such instances, intended to demonstrate Smith's purported objectivity.