James R. Rummel

It would appear that a new Gallup poll has found that Pres. Bush’s approval rating has just hit 51%. According to the pollsters, this means that Bush has it in the bag.

The share of Americans who say they approve of the job Bush is doing inched over the 50% mark to 51%. No president who was at or above 50% at this point in an election year has lost.

But it’s just a poll. The only thing that matters is the voting, both the popular vote and the Electoral College.

I came across a website devoted to the work of John Parkinson, a California architect who’s famous for his work in Los Angeles around 1900.

How famous? Well, Parkinson is credited with building the first skyscraper in downtown LA, but I suppose that agreement depends on your definition of what a skyscraper is.

The website has a really neat map of downtown LA which lists the survivng buildings that Parkinson worked on. Just the thing for a walking tour.

So US Ambassador John Danforth has urged the UN to avoid making one-sided resolutions against Israel at the organization’s annual session.

As for the dozens of non-binding, anti-Israel resolutions adopted by the General Assembly annually, “these multiple resolutions are redundant, and at best tedious and boring and not a fruitful use of time,” Danforth said. “And something should be done to fix the situation I would hope that the Europeans in particular would join us to say enough is enough for these crazy resolutions.”

I’m not holding my breath for this one.

The police have one of the most political jobs in this country. The voters elect politicians to the State legislature who pass or amend laws, judges who are voted into office by the voters or appointed by the elected politicians interpret those laws, and local politicians such as mayors set policy.

See, what did I tell you? It’s lousy with politics.

But the individual cop is powerless to promote his views past the voting booth. In most jurisdictions, police officers are barred from endorsing one candidate or political party over another. Even if they’re off duty they’d better not be caught doing something as innocent as passing out fliers or collecting signatures door-to-door. If they’re found out they’ll be fired, and if they don’t like the rules they can quit. Either way I hear McDonald’s is hiring.

There’s a very good reason why this is the way it is. Police officers have way too much influence in the community. It would simply be unfair for them to directly meddle in the decision making process, even if there’s PAC’s like the FOP to sidestep the rules. It wouldn’t be fair to the people they have sworn to serve, and it would sully the profession.

I’ve just read a blog post that makes a similar arguement, except the author is talking about news reporters as opposed to police officers.

Those who work in the news industry are supposed to be non-partisan, but it’s indescribably obvious that this is simply not the case. The attempts by the mainstream media to shape public opinion has grown increasingly tiresome in recent years, and the customers who buy their product have responded. Heck, one of the main reasons I started to blog was to get some news that hadn’t been filtered or spun. (I think the same is true for most of you.)

So what to do about this? How could the news outlets gain some credibility and respectability?

They should do what the police do. Start firing a few of the jerks who try to spin a story.

I’m sure that most reporters would consider this to be outrageous, unfair and draconian. After all, they like to say, there’s always going to be some bias in any news story. Reporters are human like everyone else, and their own way of looking at the world will always creep in.

To this I say that police officers are often called upon to uphold laws that they don’t personally agree with. They do it anyway. Imagine what would happen if we allowed the cops to operate with the same double standard that the news media has decided is reasonable for their profession.

(Hat tip to Glen for the heads up.)

So there I was, walking along on campus. I had just gotten out of class and the prof was heading in the same direction. So we talked.

“I don’t know about all of these terror alerts. We keep having them, one after another, and nothing ever happens. Makes me wonder if they’re real or not.”

I pointed out that the police are a political entity. All law enforcement is. If they get wind of a credible threat they’re going to issue an alert. That way their hinders are covered if they don’t manage to stop the bad guys in time.

“Oh, so you’re saying that the poilice are a political organization!”

Uh, yeah. Just said that.

“So they’re doing this to help Bush’s chances in the coming election!”

This gobsmacked me. I even stopped walking for a few steps. No one had ever suggested to me that the White House was cannily using terror alerts to manipulate the public.

So I tried to explain that this was nothing more than what the police do during every high-profile case. The media starts making noise about a rapist and they do the same thing. CYA, the first impulse of any political organization.

“But it’s possible, right? The President could be using terror alerts to distract the public and manipulate opinion?”

Well, yeah, sure. It’s possible! But the police follow this same pattern every single time they’re in the media spotlight.

“When Kerry wins we should see less of these terror alerts.”

Okay, whatever.

This might seem obvious to someone who’s actually worked in law enforcement, but it seems to be less than clear to those who have never had to deal with the profession. Case in point.

I expect to see a lot more of this in the next few weeks. What do you want to bet that the Lefty bloggers take this and run it into the ground?

But, then again, it doesn’t look like any of those bloggers ever caught a bad guy.