Patterico's Pontifications

7/27/2010

France Declares War on Al Qaeda in North Africa

Filed under: International,Terrorism — DRJ @ 9:29 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

France has declared war on Al Qaeda in North Africa following the murder of a French hostage:

“We are at war with al-Qaida,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death of 78-year-old hostage Michel Germaneau.
***
Fillon refused to say how France would act. “But we will,” he said in an interview with Europe 1 radio.”

Call me crazy but I believe him.

MORE: The AP reports Germaneau was murdered in retaliation for a failed rescue attempt.

— DRJ

Something You Don’t See Every Day

Filed under: General — DRJ @ 5:19 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

According to The Hill, the head of the Capitol Hill Visitor Center has been fired. More on Ms. Rouse here.

— DRJ

Beat Up on Tony Hayward Day

Filed under: General — DRJ @ 5:08 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

BP recently announced CEO Tony Hayward will be replaced but the White House doesn’t sound happy:

“[White House Press Secretary Robert] Gibbs demanded that Tony Hayward “make himself available” if Congress holds an inquiry about the BP oil leak, despite the outgoing CEO’s suggestion that he would be reluctant to do so. “I don’t think that a lot of people in any country are feeling overly sorry for the former CEO of BP,” Gibbs said.”

Hayward isn’t happy either. In better days, they seem like two peas in a pod.

— DRJ

Obama skidding with Hispanics

Filed under: General — Karl @ 11:17 am



[Posted by Karl]

Of course, the Political Wire headline for this story is “Obama Still Strong Among Hispanic Voters“:

A new AP/Univision poll finds 57% of Hispanics approve of President Obama’s job performance compared with 44% among the general population.

The AP spin is not nearly as heavy:

President Barack Obama’s once solid support among Hispanics is showing a few cracks, a troubling sign for Democrats desperate to get this critical constituency excited about helping the party hold onto Congress this fall.

***

Still, 57 percent of Hispanics approve of the president’s overall job performance compared with 44 percent among the general population in the latest AP national polling.

What neither Political Wire nor the AP report is that the previous AP/Univision poll (.pdf), conducted in May, showed 66 percent job approval for Pres. Obama. Interestingly, the two AP/Univision polls are not directly comparable. The May poll was conducted by Roper from 5/7-12, whereas the new poll was conducted by NORC over a much longer period, from 3/11-6/3. Accordingly, it is difficult to extract a short-term trend from this data.

However, the trend is quite visible in the data at Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Center. According to Gallup, Obama’s approval numbers among Hispanics has slid from the low-to-mid-70s at the end of 2009 to the mid-50s now. (In contrast, the similar numbers for whites have not moved much outside the low-40s to high-30s.)

One thing the AP gets right is that the Dems consider Hispanics a critical constituency, in both the shorter and longer term. But given the trend, and Obama’s even more anemic numbers on whether he is meeting the needs of Hispanic voters, Dems seeking to energize this constituency have their work cut out for them. The Obama administration’s demagogy over Arizona’s immigration law boosted their ratings on some issues, but the big picture is one of skidding support.

–Karl


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