* The latest regional media poll on Gov. Rick Scott’s popularity shows 42 percent rating his job performance as “poor” or “not so good,” 23 percent rating it “good” or “excellent” and 27 percent rating it “average.” A couple of questions are begged.
First, how is this not more one-sided? Have that many voters bought the by-the-numbers makeover effort that has Scott getting credit for job growth that is cyclically normal, for cynically recalibrating “principled” positions and for no longer giving his budget address in Eustis? Has 10-figure, Medicare fraud become the mere equivalent of an expense-account faux pas or a dubious political contribution? Are there that many Tea Partiers still celebrating the demise of high-speed rail between Orlando and Tampa?
And what the hell is the criteria for “average”?
* The St. Petersburg Tribune. Who would have thought?
* Technically, Tea Party loon and former U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., is now unemployed. Alas, likely not for long. He got voted out of the HenHouse, but a fellow Fox now awaits.
* For the longest time, we hadn’t heard from retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Last time was when he pre-empted cashiering by publicly “retiring” after a controversial article in Rolling Stone contained unflattering comments about the president and vice president by some McChrystal aides. Now we’re hearing from McChrystal because, well, he has a book (“My Share of the Task”) out. We get that. This time he’s using the media.
But what we still can’t fathom is this: How does a Rolling Stone writer get embedded in Afghanistan? We’re not talking the Associated Press, the New York Times or Reuters, let alone Stars and Stripes. By way of explanation, McChrystal writes that “by nature” he “tended to trust people and was typically open and transparent.”
Good thing Al-Jazeera didn’t ask.
* Anybody notice an evolving, sometimes snarkily-clichéd tone–“editorial independence” notwithstanding–on the opinion side of the Wall Street Journal? Seems more like the Wail Street Journal some days. You really would think Rupert Murdoch owned it.