The Eleven Percenters
Do you know what a shit-eating grin is? I don’t know if that’s a Southernism or an Americanism or what, but some of us know a shit-eating grin when we see it.
I know I do. Like when I see today’s headlines at the various Big Media sites quoting yet another major poll to the effect that President Bush is at an all-time low approval rating of 24 percent. Then comes —usually— the less remarked-upon approval rating of the Democratically-controlled United States Congress: eleven percent.
Eleven percent? Is that what they call an outlier —or some harrowing glance into the Robespierrean abyss of the electorate’s disdain? I mean, the Elections of 2006 were all about the Democratic Mandate, right? So what the fuck? Lost so soon? Talk about King George’s sorry numbers all you want, but the Congress meets the approval of eleven percent of the people and it’s something to downplay. Well, that either shows the inadequacies of the science of polling or it bodes ill for The Hegemon.
But what such numbers definitely mean is that Big Media won’t tell you about them half as much as they’ll tell you about Bush’s supposedly Nixonian standing with the public.
Because it fits the narrative better that way, see.
