CT Blue

This post ( Why is the Democratic Congress so unpopular?) by Glenn Greenwald hits the nail on the head:

For the past several months, Congress’ approval ratings have been as low as, and often lower than, George Bush’s unprecedentedly low ratings. Various media pundits and right-wing advocates use this fact constantly to insinuate that Bush is not uniquely unpopular and Americans have not really turned against Republicans, but rather, there is just a generic dissatisfaction with our political institutions, or more misleadingly still, that Americans are actually angry at Congress for not “doing enough” (by which it is meant that they are excessively investigating and obstructing and not “cooperating” enough).

But the reason for these low approval ratings is as clear as it is meaningful — the overall ratings for Congress are so low because Democrats disapprove of the Democratic Congress almost as much as Republicans do. There is nothing unusual about how Republicans or independents rate the Democratic Congress; the only aspect of any of this that is unusual is that Democrats rate the Congress so low even though it is controlled by their own party. Virtually every poll demonstrates this.

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If Democrats approved of their Congress even close to the rate that Republicans approve of Bush, then Congress’ approval ratings would be at a fairly average level, even high. But not only is Congress’ unpopularity due primarily to Democratic anger, the recent drops in Congressional popularity are due almost exclusively to growing Democratic and independent (but not Republican) frustration with the Congress:

The nine-point drop in Congress’ job approval rating from last month to this month has come exclusively from Democrats and independents, with Democrats’ ratings dropping 11 points (from 32% to 21%) and independents’ ratings dropping 13 points (from 30% to 17%). Republicans’ 18% approval rating is unchanged from last month.

Since Democrats took over Congress in January, there have been three major attributes characterizing their conduct: (1) a failure to stop or restrict the war in Iraq; (2) a general failure/unwillingness to stop Bush on much of anything else of significance (FISA, a failure to reverse any of the excesses of the GOP Congress, such as the Military Commissions Act, lack of limits on his ability to attack Iran, etc.); and (3) numerous investigations, sometimes flashly but thus far inconsequential. There is no rational way to argue that the numerous investigations (item (3)) are responsible for Congressional unpopularity given how overwhelmingly Americans want Congressional investigations of the administration.

Generic ratings of Congress don’t mean much for individual Congressional races, but they do say something about the national mood. People tend to exempt their own Congressperson from their overall view of Congress. I proved that myself today when I happened to run into Joe Courtney on the street in Norwich. I immediately began berating him because Congress hadn’t impeached or imprisoned anyone yet, but I also told him he was doing a good job. Which he is, since he doesn’t run the show up there.

In any event, I think Greenwald is right, and something Joe said provided anecdotal confirmation. When I started railing about impeachment he told me I sounded like all the people at the town hall meeting he’d held the night before. We can only hope that Joe’s not the only one hearing from the pissed off majority. Maybe there’ll be some stiffened spines in Washington this September. It’s time for Karl Rove to see the inside of the Washington jail.