Did Sen. Hillary Clinton win the Pennsylvania primary in any meaningful way? Does cutting a fighter jet into little pieces make for good art? And who is the single most conservative member of the house on foreign policy? These questions and more are raised, pondered, re-examined, synthesized, refined, interrogated, beat to death, waterboarded, and stacked on the floor in neat little pyramids by Goldy and friends.

Yes…it was another evening of Podcasting Liberally.

Joining Goldy was a panel of the blogosphere’s finest: Will, Ray, mcjoan, and Daniel .

The show is 50:07, and is available here as a 47 MB MP3.

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_april_22_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E, although some of us will show up a little early for dinner.

Tonight we’ll raise a stein to the earth, celebrate Bush’s great achievment, toast (and maybe roast) Will, and…um, maybe watch election returns from that one state back east…oh, what’s its name….

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

It’s official. President George W. Bush has united the American people, who have collectively declared him: Worst. President. Ever.

President Bush has set a record he’d presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.

The title comes at the end of a long downhill slide from having the record highest approval rating in September, 2001. Bush earned that record by ignoring a daily presidential briefing dated 6 August 2001 titled, “Bin Laden determined to strike in US.” (Among other things, the memo pointed out, “…FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”)

Besides the USA Today/Gallup poll, there was an ARG poll released today and a Rasmussen poll released Sunday that included presidential approval.

The ARG poll gave Bush 22% approval and 72% disapproval. This isn’t the worst Bush has done in the ARG poll…in February, his approval was a mere 19% and his disapproval was an astounding 77%. But, then, ARG presidential approvals polls seem to be biased against Bush, and ARG, in general, has something of a reputation for quirky (i.e. highly variable) results.

The Rasmussen approval poll (which is now taken weekly instead of daily) has Bush’s approval at 34% and disapproval at 64%. The Rasmussen presidential approval polls have always been biased in favor of Bush relative to other major pollsters (but consistently and reliably so). We can compare Sunday’s results with past performance in the Rasmussen poll. When the April polls are averaged at the end of the month, this is likely to be Bush’s worst performance to date–easily beating the 36% approval and 61% disapproval from last May. Rasmussen points out:

Sometimes it is difficult to keep the ratings in perspective. In February 2005, at the beginning of the President’s second term, the number who Strongly Approved was roughly equal to the number who Strongly Disapproved. Now, three years later, just 13% Strongly Approve while more than three times as many—45%–Strongly Disapprove.

Aggregates of multiple polls (e.g. Prof. PollKatz or Pollster.com) also show Bush at the lowest point of his presidency.

So…we have a lame duck Worst. President. Ever. But consider this: at this point in the second term, Ronald Reagan was hovering around 50% approval and Bill Clinton’s approval was in the low 60%. It isn’t just a “lame duck” effect.

Does Bush’s pathetic approval/disapproval matter? From Rasmussen:

In March, as the President’s Approval Rating slipped, the number of Americans who consider themselves to be Democrats remained near the highest levels ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports.

Yeah…I guess it does a little. Besides needlessly sending our soldiers to their death and running up enormous debt for an illegal war that was fraudulently foisted upon the American people, besides the erosion of our civil liberties, the invasion of our privacy, and the approval of torture contrary to our treaties, in addition to causing massive (and, quite possibly, permanent) damage to our reputation abroad, it looks like the Bush administration has also made it downright distasteful (or, perhaps, embarrassing) to be a Republican.

Moblogic examines the outsourcing of the government:

(This along with some eighty other media clips from the past week in politics are posted here at Hominid Views.)

SurveyUSA has just released a new poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 634 people shows Governor Christine Gregoire leading Dino Rossi 50% to 46%. The 4% spread is an improvement for Gregoire from the 1% spread in the early April SurveyUSA poll and the 1% spread in a late March Rassmussen poll.

Clearly, the current SurveyUSA poll results are within the 4% margin of error for the poll. What this really means is that the probability of Gregoire beating Rossi is less than 95%, based on what we can tell from a relatively small sample. But we can do better than to just dismiss the poll as “a statistical tie.” Instead, we can estimate the probability that Gregoire should win, given the information available from a sample of this size. This can easily be calculated mathematically. But it is more intuitive to simulate elections and simply count the number of Gregoire wins and Rossi wins.

I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 634 voters each, where each person had a 50% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 46% chance of voting for Rossi and a 4% chance of voting for neither.

The results give Gregoire 859,651 wins and Rossi 132,432 wins. This suggests that Gregoire has something like an 86.7% probability of beating Rossi if the election were held right now, and Rossi has a 13.3% chance of beating Gregoire.

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections:

The area to the right of the red line are wins for Gregoire and those to the left are wins for Rossi.

Things may change between now and November, but if I had to bet the (server) farm on a candidate right now, my money would be on Gregoire.

New meaning was given to the expression “happy birthday, and many happy returns” in this birthday/tax day edition of Podcasting Liberally.

Joining The Birthday Boy (who has no business pushing their buttons, some Righties claim) was a taxing panel of political bloggers and boisterous blowhards: Will, Lee, Carl, and Nick.

They begin with a bitter discussion of “bittergate,” and a better discussion of a bitter Rossi’s budget busting “Progressive” Transportation “Plan” fantasy. Next the bloggers barked at Reichert’s sub-prime fundraising bust and boasted about Burner’s better fundraising bonanza. There was some banter about the Colombia trade deal and bellyaching about the Sonics, too.

The show is 54:46, and is available here as a 51.3 MB MP3.

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_april_15_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E, although some of us will show up a little early for dinner.

Tonight we will have double-header of theme songs by the Beatles: Birthday, in honor of Mr. Goldstein’s 45th and Tax Man, just to remind us of the $31,000 in deferred taxes we each owe on the $9.4 trillion dollar national debt. (Thanks kids and grandkids!)

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

The world’s most widely read blogger:

(There are some sixty other media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

This week’s podcast featured a panel of highly regarded as well as disreputable northwest bloggers…taking a few potshots at David Postman along the way.

Joining Goldy were Will, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, John Wyble, and mcjoan.

Topics of discussion include Will’s wonderful bus tour, Gov. Christine Gregoire as a retail politician, a follow-up on the BIAW controversy, an update on the Washington legislative races, the Dalai Lama and the lure of commerce, and The Responsible Plan (with a brief journey into the thought processes of Cokie Roberts).

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_apr_8_2008.mp3]

The show is 49:42, and is available here as a 47.7 MB MP3.

[Recorded live at the Montlake Alehouse in Seattle during Tuesday’s meeting of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to enjoy the cuisine.

Tonight’s theme song is inspired by rumors of a Condi VP running-mate for McCain (please, oh please?): Winlar’s Condoleezza.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Seattle’s Winlar asks “Which one is next?”:

Darcy Burner addresses the Take America Back Conference:

(This along with some seventy other media clips from the past week in politics are now posted at Hominid Views.)

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to sample from the terrific menu.

Tonight’s theme song is from The Clash’s album Cut the Crap….“Dirty Punk”.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

Seattle’s Winlar shares his mother’s advice (and you can sing along):

(There are some 60 other clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to sample from the terrific menu.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.