The definition of a tough crowd? When Obama sycophants like Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Ezra Klein all give the President’s speech the worst reviews since the latest Ben Affleck movie, there’s not a whole heckuva lot for the MWU to add. Perhaps Olbermann said it best (didn’t think you’d ever see that line, did you?

57 days after oil spill began, President Obama, along with his most trusted advisor, Ted Teleprompter,  will address the nation tonight about the horrible situation in the Gulf. We’ve read that much of the speech will have absolutely nothing to do with fixing the leak. Right now, people across the country are unanimous in their desire for the leak to be plugged and the mess to be cleaned up, period. Diverting attention and resources to other ideological or reactionary pursuits is not the answer right now.

"One of the strangest results of the Texas Primary on March 2nd was the nomination of one Kesha Rogers as the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 22nd District which encompasses a four county area in and around Houston and includes a lot of aerospace workers at the Johnson Space Center. Kesha Rogers won her nomination by tooling around in a sound truck, proclaiming the slogan ‘Save NASA.

Some Republicans believe that, if 2010 turns out to be the kind of year it may be shaping up to be, the Party can pick up the California Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer. In theory, this view may be reasonable. But first, the Republicans must nominate a strong candidate.

Note to self: never underestimate the power of Andrew Breitbart.

At last weekend's Tea Party Convention, the professional gadfly took on the "birther" movement (those people who deny President Obama's constitutional eligibility to be president). Breitbart didn't engage them on their chosen battleground -- legal minutiae and 18th century semantics and other forms of arcanery -- but instead on a strategic ground: what do they intend to achieve, and what will be the ancillary damage caused by their victory?

There are a lot of annoying people on the planet. Almost everyone is annoying to some degree, and at some time or another. But there are some people who go well over the boundaries of acceptable annoyance, and provoke rebellion. Not to trivialize History, but look at the American Revolution. While events went out of control and led to armed insurrection, they started - well, for lack of a better word, as annoying. Taxes that applied only to the colonies. Rules from London that Parliament and the Crown never planned to discuss, let alone apply to themselves.

Gallup's latest numbers on congressional approval (because we love polls):

A warning from my favorite economic analyst, Donald Luskin.

Don't think that Republicans can't be sucked in when an anti-Wall Street lynch mob gets its blood up. Recall that Sarbanes-Oxley, the devastating antigrowth response in 2002 to the Enron and Worldcom scandals, was passed with virtually unanimous support by Republicans in Congress, and signed by a Republican president. Recall that last year 85 House Republicans voted for a 90% tax on bonuses for any employee of any bank that took more than $5 billion in TARP money.

Investors got some good news last Friday.

It took 81 years for Congress to honor George Washington with a federal holiday on his birthday, the first honor ever accorded an American citizen by the federal government.  Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was never actually a federal holiday until it was combined with Washington’s into President’s Day in 1971.  Several states celebrated both holidays at least since Lincoln’s death in 1865, but those are generally the only Presidents recognized by state holidays, and all of them waited until after the President had left office to declare the holidays.

Many are puzzled that Democrats persist in ramming unpopular and destructive legislation down our collective throats while seemingly unconcerned by their plummeting poll numbers. A widespread belief is that the Democrats are committing political suicide and will be swept from one or both houses of Congress with unprecedented electoral losses next November.

I was sitting at my table this morning, looking over my schedule for the day, when Mister Reality came by, poured himself a coffee and took a seat.

"I suppose you are feeling pleased with yourself this morning." he began. When I said nothing but raised an eyebrow, he clarified. "Politically, I mean."

"Well,", I ventured. "New Jersey and Virginia were nice results, though I have to say I was cheering for Hoffman in New York."