Driving 55 in a 90 mph world

[Greetings, Mannionistas! If you like this post, the management encourages you to sample another bit of our fine product.]

Nick from DL sent me these poll results with the comment, "The numbers say it all: 60% of Americans support the right to choose. That's just the latest FOX poll. The question is posed every which way in previous polls, and most of them are encouraging, e.g. 66% would not want Roe overturned."

I find that comforting--along with all the other poll results we're seeing lately, like these:

• 70% of Republicans think civil war will break out in Iraq.
• 70% of Americans think US is on wrong track
• 37% approve of his job performance
• 74% of Republicans approve his performance, down from 82% in February
• 36% approval rating on domestic affairs, down from 39% last month
• 43% approval on foreign policy and terrorism
• 40% approval on Iraq and economy
• 2/3 disapprove of Congress job performance

And yet, in spite of all these numbers, Bush's nation-destroying agenda keeps getting pushed through, piece by piece. And with each scandal, each bare-faced lie exposed, each unpopular program, each dreadful economic report, each foreign policy failure--each time we think, well this is the one that will do it. And yet it never seems to be "the one."

Here's the smartest thing I ever heard Newt Gingrich say (stop me if you've heard this):

He was driving on the Autobahn in Germany--going about 90, probably--and thinking about the 55 mph speed limits in the US, which everyone hated. If the German government lowered the speed limit on the Autobahn to 55, Gingrich recalled thinking, everyone in Germany would drive 55 . . . and then vote the whole government out at the next opportunity. In the US, they'd complain about the speed limit, drive 90 anyway, and keep re-electing the same people.