According to the most recent Gallup survey, President Obama’s job approval rating averaged 46 percent in June.

The president’s strongest support comes from blacks (86 percent), adults aged 18 to 29 (54 percent), those living in the East (53 percent), and Hispanics (52 percent). This is in addition to 81 percent approval from Democrats, 75 percent from liberals, and 55 percent from moderates. On the flip side, Obama’s support is lowest among Republicans (14 percent), conservatives (24 percent), whites (38 percent), seniors (39 percent), and those living in the South (40 percent).

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Politics may be the art of the possible, but while demonstrating flexibility is important for a legislator it can be a drawback to winning elections. That’s why Michele Bachmann’s first television advertisement to be broadcast in Iowa is smart politics even if it may not be the smartest policy. During the course of her ad, Bachmann not only brags of her vote against President Obama’s stimulus plan and the 2008 bailout of financial institutions,but gives a flat promise: “I will not vote to increase the debt ceiling.” That sort of fiscal absolutism may be considered an irresponsible roadblock to genuine compromises, especially if it means she would vote against a debt ceiling bill that would, as House Speaker John Boehner has proposed to the president, enact the sort of genuine tax reform Republicans have wanted to enact for decades.

But as much as such a pledge can’t be considered constructive on Capitol Hill, it is exactly what many Republicans are dying to hear from a presidential candidate. Though some in the GOP, as well as the media, are acting as if the Tea Party movement that drove the Republican midterm election victory in 2010 is a passing craze, it is not. Many grass roots Republicans are worried this Republican Congress will succumb to the blandishments of the Washington establishment the way their predecessors who were defeated in 2006 did. Bachmann’s promise, rather than Boehner’s proposed compromise, is a guarantee that won’t happen even if means passing up an opportunity to do something constructive.

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There is a really lousy idea making the rounds of the chattering classes in Washington right now: that the 14th Amendment gives the President the power to take on debt beyond what Congress has authorized. What the 14th Amendment, Section 4, says is:

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

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Not only did he come clean, he issued a bizarre quasi-apology as well – but more on that in a second.

The controversy began when Richard Falk, the UN envoy for human rights in the Palestinian territories, posted a cartoon of a yarmulke-wearing dog chewing on a bloody skeleton and urinating on Lady Justice on his personal blog last month.

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Jonathan Tobin has expertly dissected many of the problems with the UN report on the May 15 incident in which more than 1,000 Palestinian and other “protesters” tried to storm the border between Israel and Lebanon. But I can’t resist piling on. Michael Williams’ report is such a perfect example of the double standard to which Israel—and occasionally the United States—is held.

Williams admits the “demonstrators” were hardly Gandhi types: He writes they “unearthed 23 anti-tank mines, threw stones and two petrol bombs across the fence and attempted to climb it and bring it down.” He also admits Israeli troops were not eager to shoot anyone: Only after “a verbal warning and firing into the air” did the soldiers open live fire, and then only to prevent the protesters from tearing down the fence and invading Israel. It’s not even clear Israeli troops caused all 11 fatalities, since Lebanese forces were using live rounds, too.
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Turkey’s Islamic government has spent the last few years gradually dismantling that country’s once warm alliance with Israel. Motivated as much by their ideological affinities as any notion of their national interest, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP party government had distanced itself from Jerusalem and then assumed the role of one of the Jewish state’s most ardent critics. Things came to a head last year when the Turks allowed an “aid” flotilla to Gaza to be launched from their shores to break the blockade of the Hamas-run strip. When Turkish nationals were killed as armed activists on one of the ships resisted Israeli commandos who bordered the vessel, it seemed a complete rupture between the two countries was in the cards.

Thus, the news that Israeli and Turkish diplomats are meeting today to settle their differences must be considered a remarkable turn of events. It shows that despite the sympathy for Israel’s Islamist foes among the Turks and the belief among some members of the AKP that their country should assume the pose of the successor of the Ottoman Empire, shoring up their strategic position in the region may be a higher priority.

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Soon after the assault on Israel’s borders that took place on the anniversary of the birth of the Jewish state, Michael Williams, the United Nations’ special coordinator for Lebanon, was quoted as saying he was “shocked by the number of the deaths and the use of disproportionate, deadly force” by Israeli soldiers against “apparently unarmed demonstrators.” So it is hardly surprising the UN report on the incident authored by the same Michael Williams placed the blame on Israel for the fatalities among the border crashers.

The UN report that Williams wrote was released today and damned Israel for using the wrong tactics in dealing with the May 15 attempt on the part of those protesting the country’s existence to break in. While conceding the demonstrators had been verbally warned and that warning shots were fired, the report stated the deaths were still primarily Israel’s fault because of faulty crowd-control measures. The UN does blame the protesters for violating the cease-fire that exists along the border and for throwing rocks and petrol bombs and for trying to tear down the fence there. But it failed to note the Lebanese Army was also firing live ammunition there and might have been responsible for the deaths. Even more to the point, the report fails to understand a violent mob crashing a border fence in a war zone is not the same thing as a peaceful demonstration in a city square.

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It’s hard to read too much into the Obama campaign attacks on GOP candidates at this point. If the Democrats go after Mitt Romney, does that mean they are concerned he has the best chance of beating Obama if he becomes the nominee? Or is it a ploy, designed to make strategists think they’re nervous about Romney, when in reality they’re worried about some other candidate?

Regardless, the Obama campaign has a lot of money to burn, and it’s already started using it to tamper with the Republican nominations — and especially Romney — the Washington Post reports:

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Good looks may have always been an advantage in politics, but the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon television debates have long been considered the turning point when the outside package trumped substance. Supposedly those who heard the first debate between the two over the radio thought Richard Nixon was the winner, while those who viewed it on television (and got a good look at Nixon’s bad makeup job that made him look the part of “Tricky Dick”) believed the far more handsome Kennedy came out on top.

Not all successful presidential candidates have had the charm of JFK, but the notion that “sex appeal” may have something to do with the outcomes of elections did not originate with former congressman Vin Weber, who has been put through the wringer after publicly noting Michele Bachmann may have a way of appealing to voters his candidate Tim Pawlenty does not. Weber has been forced to apologize in large measure because such a remark is rightly seen as sexist. There’s little doubt female politicians’ looks, hair and clothes are the subject of far more comment than that devoted to their male counterparts. Attractive female politicians, among whose ranks Bachmann must certainly be counted, are also routinely subjected to the sort of objectification and demeaning comments about their abilities that are the stuff of boys’ locker room banter.

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Even with polls showing there’s an anti-Mormon bias among voters — especially Democrats, more than a quarter of whom say they wouldn’t vote for a Mormon — I hadn’t given the issue much thought. But this video of a Memphis Fox affiliate ridiculing Mitt Romney about his religion is a real wake-up call (h/t Ben Smith). The whole news segment appears to be about Mormonism and the 2012 election, but skip ahead to the 3:20 mark for the worst of it:

Poking fun at religion is one thing, but skewering peoples’ religious beliefs during a news analysis segment is pretty outrageous. Imagine if a reporter had instead been mocking some of the stranger aspects of Judaism, Christianity or Islam?

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Rep. Michele Bachmann’s first campaign ad of the season is out in Iowa today, and it’s clearly aimed at introducing herself to Iowa voters. The commercial is short and simple, and features Bachmann talking directly into the camera about her Iowa roots, her foster kids, her career as an attorney, and her fiscal record as a member of Congress.

The underlying message of the video: this is not the crazy tea party lady the Democrats have been trying to paint her as for the past few years.

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Representative Michele Bachmann, a heroine of the Tea Party Movement, is fond of referring to her “titanium spine.” Her quest for the presidency is premised on the idea she is willing to do the hard work “establishment” Republicans will not. But in her recent appearances on Fox News Sunday, she made some comments about Representative Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal that seemed to cut against that narrative.

When asked about his plan to reform Medicare, Bachmann told host Chris Wallace it is one over which she has put “an asterisk.” Bachmann went on to explain, “We have to make sure going forward with senior citizens, that we’re focusing on a higher quality of life, dealing with cures for instance for senior citizens.”

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With diplomatic efforts to stop this year’s flotilla to Gaza a seeming success, a new myth has arisen: The success of this year’s effort proves Israel could also have stopped last year’s flotilla without bloodshed had it only been a bit smarter. Max implied as much here; Haaretz said it openly. But the sorry truth is Israel’s diplomatic efforts succeeded this time only because of its willingness to use deadly force last year.

Since Israel’s diplomatic efforts failed so utterly last year, they garnered no international attention. But in fact, Israel tried desperately to stop the flotilla peacefully right up until its commandos boarded the ships. It negotiated frantically with Turkey, whose nationals comprised the bulk of the passengers, and even reached an agreement under which the flotilla would dock in Israel and the Turkish Red Crescent would then transfer the cargo to Gaza; but Ankara reneged at the last minute. It begged the countries whence the ships were sailing (Turkey, Greece and Ireland) not to let them depart and urged other Western countries, especially the U.S., to employ their diplomatic leverage. But all to no avail: The unanimous response was democracies can’t bar peaceful demonstrators from sailing the high seas.

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The news that President Obama has upped the ante in the talks over extending the nation’s debt limit has to leave most observers wondering, who’s bluffing? Is the president seriously considering House Speaker John Boehner’s idea of a major overhaul of the tax code that would close loopholes and therefore raise revenues in exchange for substantial spending cuts in entitlement spending that would include hitherto sacred cows such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security?

If so, then we may be on the brink of a historic compromise that will not only represent a major step toward fiscal sanity but also fairness. Simplifying the tax code has long been a Republican goal although not one energetically pursued. This would eliminate a great many loopholes and raise a considerable amount of revenue, but if it is accompanied as the GOP insists, by lower rates, it could be sold to their party’s rank and file as a blow to big government rather than yet another measure that will only feed the monster.

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