That title is only slightly a joke, as apparently our honorable and distinguished president, in a pre-recorded video appearance on the game show Deal or No Deal (which, admittedly, seems kinda familiar but I certainly have never seen it)  actually did ask host Howie Mandel that question.  According to the UK Guardian, Bush joked to the show’s host:

Howie, I don’t know if you’re free to come to Washington any time soon but I have to reach an agreement with Congress on the federal budget. How’d you like to host a $3 trillion ‘Deal or No Deal

I guess it could have been sorta funny, if not for the fact that Howie could almost certainly put together a better Federal budget than Mr Bush.

What was much more interesting to me from the article (which you can read here) is the fact that the people at Gallop just yesterday announced that Bush now has the lowest approval rating of any president since they began tracking such things, back in 1941 with FDR.  Bush even said he was thrilled to be on the show:

Come to think of it, I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings these days.

Go ahead, laugh; I’m laughing.  The previous disapproval rating record was set by Truman in 1952 at the hight of the Korean War.

Bellow the fold, Gallops record of presidential approval highs and lows for as far back as records have been kept:

The highs and lows of US presidents (courtesy of Gallup)

George Bush

High 89% approval (September 2001)

Low 69% disapproval (April 2008)

Bill Clinton

High 71% approval (December 2000)

Low 53% disapproval (September 1994)

George HW Bush

High 89% approval (March 1991)

Low 59% disapproval (July-August 1992)

Ronald Reagan

High 71% approval (January 1986)

Low 56% disapproval (January 1983)

Jimmy Carter

High 74% approval (March 1977)

Low 59% disapproval (June 1979)

Gerald Ford

High 70% approval (August 1974)

Low 46% disapproval (November 1975)

Richard Nixon

High 66% approval (January 1973)

Low 65% disapproval (July 1974)

Lyndon Johnson

High 79% approval (March 1964)

Low 52% disapproval (August 1968)

John F Kennedy

High 79% approval (November 1961)

Low 30% disapproval (November 1963)

Dwight Eisenhower

High 77% approval (January 1956)

Low 35% disapproval (March 1958)

Harry Truman

High 91% approval (August 1945)

Low 67% disapproval (January 1952)

Franklin D Roosevelt

High 79% approval (January 1942)

Low 26% disapproval (August 1941)

UPDATE: Bill Passed.

Peter Welch’s brief, but intense 6 week campaign to close a loophole allowing taxpayer fraud committed by overseas contractors to go unreported and unaddressed is about to bear its first fruit (in record time) through the expected passage of H.R. 5712 – the “Close the Contractor Fraud Loophole Act” – by later this afternoon. When it passes, it will place Welch among a very special minority of lawmakers; ones who have actually pushed back against a Bush administration excess and won (in fact, the only comparable unqualified victory I can think of was Senator Leahy’s success in removing legal provisions allowing for the Bush Administration to seize control of State National Guards and deploy them across the country, which makes the case that Vermont is wielding legislative clout beyond its tiny size).

The story is well-covered in the most recent issue of 7 Days, as Ken Picard does his usual thorough job, saving me some writing in the process:

…last November that the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed regulations that would require contractors to adopt a code of professional conduct and ethics and implement internal controls to detect and report waste, fraud and abuse.

Two months ago, someone in the executive branch – Welch won’t say who – tipped him off to an overlooked provision in the OMB’s proposed rules: Firms operating overseas were exempt from that requirement. In effect, government contractors working domestically would be held to a higher ethical standard than those working abroad – a curious distinction given the largely lawless and unregulated environments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Welch, who serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, brought the loophole to the attention of committee chair Henry Waxman of California, who demanded in writing that the White House produce all documents related to the loophole by April 4. That deadline came and went. In the meantime, Welch had introduced H.R. 5712 – the “Close the Contractor Fraud Loophole Act.” Within days, Waxman scheduled a hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement for April 15.

The Bush administration claims the loophole was an honest mistake. Welch and Waxman aren’t so sure.

So, why the loophole, which was slipped in quietly and under the radar screen before coming to Welch’s attention? It’s fodder for conspiracy theorists for sure, who may be expecting to find some sort of massive Halliburton fraud feeding into a Dick Cheney offshore account. Most likely, though, is that the contractors have become so wild west with fraud, lack of legal oversight, and full-blown corruption that its a potential can of worms the administration would rather not open. Their quick backpedaling underscores how little they wanted Welch and Waxman to be successful in codifying the involvement of Congress, and good on them for moving forward regardless.

Of course, the devil will be in, not the details, but the implementation of actual fraud reporting requirements.

 The next step – as with any legislative oversight on this president, will be some sort of meaningful enforcement and oversight, which is where Congress has generally come up short. Even with law to back them up, catching fraud in that morass will still depend largely on whistleblowers, and whistleblowing is not a sport for the faint of heart these days:

Despite this staggering mess, there are no noble outcomes for those who have blown the whistle (on contractors in Iraq), according to a review of such cases by The Associated Press.

“If you do it, you will be destroyed,” said William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

“Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes people ask me, ‘Should I do this?’ And my answer is no. If they’re married, they’ll lose their family. They will lose their jobs. They will lose everything,” Weaver said.

They have been fired or demoted, shunned by colleagues, and denied government support in whistleblower lawsuits filed against contracting firms.

So while kudos are in order for Welch, here’s hoping he stays on this, as the story of fraud and abuse among overseas contractors – and its full implications – has barely begun.

Just an FYI to Pollina supporters that there is a fundraising event in Waterbury coming up.

Where:  Alchemist

When:  Sunday, April 26th

Time:  9:30am 

Chef ('cause food makes the event):  Jeff Lang 

In case you haven't checked out Maureen Dowd this morning — who's taken her turn beating on and defending both Clinton and Obama — it's Clinton's turn to see the sexism charge being called out against her.

He’s never going to shake her off.

Not all by himself.

The very fact that he can’t shake her off has become her best argument against him. “Why can’t he close the deal?” Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday.

She’s been running ads about it, suggesting he doesn’t have “what it takes” to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?

Her message?  Obama isn't “man enough” to beat her.  More on-the-money quotes below the fold.  Here's the teaser:

“The Democrats are growing ever more desperate about the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.”

All quotes are from Maureen Dowd in today's NYTimes (the green quotation background is more difficult to read): 

*********** 

“They also cringe as Bill continues his honey-crusted-nut-bar meltdown. With his usual exquisite timing, just as Pennsylvanians were about to vote, Hillary’s husband became the first person ever to play the Caucasian Card. First, he blurted out to a radio interviewer that the Obama camp had played the race card against him after he compared Obama’s strength in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson’s. And then, with a Brobdingnagian finger-wagging on the screen, he denied it to an NBC News reporter.

“You always follow me around and play these little games, and I’m not going to play your games today,” he said, accusing the reporter of looking for “another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us.”

***********

…Not to be one-sided in her critique, Dowd says of Obama:

“As the husband of Michelle, does he know better than to defy the will of a strong woman? Or is he simply scared of Hillary because she’s scary?”

***********

…And finally, a really great bit of wisdom a la Dr. Suess:

“Before they devour themselves once more, perhaps the Democrats will take a cue from Dr. Seuss’s “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!” (The writer once mischievously redid it for his friend Art Buchwald as “Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!”) They could sing:

“The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. … I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. … You can go in an old blue shoe.

Just go, go, GO!”

**********

Thanks, Maureen.  Well said.

And so it drags on… I suppose we're off to Guam.

Like all sane people, I am mightily weary of this primary – but in my case its not so much of the actual campaigning as its unfortunate side-effect, let's call it Internet Derangement Syndrome. It's what happens when you mix candidates that get people very excited (as both Obama and Clinton do), a protracted, expensive, nasty campaign – and a communications medium that allows for huge amounts of information and interpersonal exchanges to be cross-transmitted in the blink of an eye, and all disembodied from actual tactile human contact.

The result is like some ugly virus. Mass media have famously had the effect of turning people into mindless shambling zombies, but this new media seems to have the power to turn them into scary, crazed wild-eyed zombies, like the”Rage” virus in 28 Days Later.

Consider in the buildup to Pennsylvania just how bad it had gotten, not just among the commenters of these sites, but even among the lead bloggers. At Daily Kos, DHinMI penned an anti-Clinton diary that can at best be called gender-baiting, and spent the rest of the day furiously castigating and insulting any who raised objections. And then there is the bizarre and unnerving phenomenon mockingly dubbed “fingergate,” on display at pro-Clinton sites such as MyDD, in which Obama is purported to have given Clinton the finger during a stump speech. In recent days, this on-beyond-ridiculous notion has received as much scrutiny and absolutist pronouncements springled with phrases like “the facts are clear” and “there is no denying” as the Kennedy assassination. It's as though nobody even remembers the issues sometimes, and it would all be laughable if it weren't, at the end of the day, a disturbing glimpse into the anatomy of the mob mentality and the human tendency towards irrational, enraged hysteria.

So I can't wait til this is over, because I think its doing us damage – not because we on the netroots aren't all going to get over it. We will, although not because we'll magically rediscover our better selves. Rather, because the internet allows so much communication so quickly that things simply happen fast. Whole social movements can rise and fall in amonth, where in the past it would have taken a decade. We'll all have made up and had a dozen more fights between now and Election Day.

No, what worries me is how ugly the blogs, citizen journo sites – all the new media sites have become. They're so toxic, I can barely stand to visit them anymore, and I live for this stuff. The influence we've built – and continue to build – depends on having an audience of outside the netroots faithful. We can't influence the traditional media and the political conversation if we make the place so nasty, people stop visiting… and lord knows we're going to need every bit of the influence we've accumulated (and more) come November, and into the next administration, whoever is running it. 

(Press release from the ECFiber.Net governing board.)

EC FIBER IS ALIVE AND WELL!

The headline and article in Saturday’s Valley News about ECFiber (“VT Telecom Panel Snubs ECFiber”) left a seriously misleading impression that the fate of a grass roots effort that won near unanimous community support on town meeting day depended on the VTA. It does not. Instead, it is, as it always has been the case, up to private sector financiers and the growing numbers of Vermont citizens who have eagerly indicated a readiness to subscribe to world class fiber-based services.

At VTA’s request, and after the Chairman’s public statement that VTA could only bond for a minimum of $10 million, ECF submitted a proposal for discussion for two-tier financial support, of which only $4 million (not $8 million as reported), was direct lending, with the balance in escrow as a contingency fund.  Further, ECF continually expressed willingness to accept any sum, no matter how small, since the purpose was only to attach some financial gesture to the letter of moral support VTA had already provided. Once VTA took the position that it could only fund a project with near-AAA credit rating, ECF withdrew its request, since no start-up venture can meet that standard.  Private financiers understand this.

By its decision, the VTA refused an invitation to contribute toward creating a more favorable investment climate for ECFiber. In so doing, its actions – unwittingly or not –have had exactly the opposite consequence.  This is evidenced by a wide spread impression created by VTA’s actions and subsequent press coverage in the Valley News and other regional media that VTA had not just snubbed but “killed” the project.

Reports of ECFiber’s demise” are dead wrong.  On Monday, April 21, 20 towns presented their signatures to the Interlocal Contract that establishes the venture as a legal entity.  An Executive Committee of delegates was elected, by-laws adopted, and a committee structure for carrying the project forward in association with ValleyNet, the non-profit operating partner, was established.  

Concurrently, ECF has also concluded an agreement with Atlantic Engineering Group (AEG), one of the foremost design/build telecommunications engineering firms in the country, for a fixed price construction contract covering 75% of the projected capital expenditure. AEG has successfully built 65 Fiber-to-the-Premises networks including 16 municipally-owned ones.  The balance of the capital expenditures includes the “pole make-ready” which work must be done by the utilities that own the poles, and is governed by Vermont law and regulation, and the design and construction of the network hub, which ValleyNet prefers to do on its own. AEG reviewed the same data presented by ECF to VTA, and found: “AEG considers the ECFiber network design to be sound and has tested the ValleyNet cost figures using its own proprietary pricing models … and has concluded that ValleyNet’s figures … are reasonable and achievable. AEG believes that the execution schedule…is reasonable and will commit to meet that schedule.”

Providing future economic opportunity and security for the towns of our region is not an exercise for the faint of heart or for those fearful of failure.  Inaction will condemn communities and businesses in our region to a far more ominous set of social and economic risks.

ECF now has all the elements in place to go out to the private capital markets with a prospectus, and has already received encouragement from a number of interested investors.  Nonetheless, given the turmoil in the capital markets, this is expected to be a much longer process than would have been the case a year ago.

However, ECF is confident that it will secure the municipal capital lease financing upon which its business model is based, with the continued and growing grassroots support  that has made this project possible.