Via memeorandum, I see that the Washington Post issued a preemptive apology for this cartoon accompanying Gene Weingarten’s humor piece, “Monkey Business – The good news for men: Women love apes” in the Sunday supplement:

The apology:

The headline, illustration and text of “Below the Beltway,” a column in The Washington Post Magazine today, may cause offense to readers. The magazine was printed before a widely publicized incident last week in which a chimpanzee attacked and badly mauled a woman in Stamford, Conn. In addition, the image and text inadvertently may conjure racial stereotypes that The Post does not countenance. We regret the lapse.

Given the controversy over a recent NY Post cartoon involving a monkey, one understands the Post’s caution.  And, yes, I understand that there are unfortunate racial connotations going back generations. But, seriously, are all references and images of monkeys off limits for the duration of the Obama administration?

We elected the man President of the United States.  The glass ceiling has been, shall we say, shattered.

For that matter, despite their both having larger than average ears, there are far, far more allusions to George W. Bush and variations on “chimp” than there are on Obama and “monkey.”  Precisely, as it turns out, because one is merely personally insulting (Bush equals not smart) while the other invokes racial prejudice and is thus taboo.

Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.  And sometimes a monkey is just a monkey

Economic researchers at Yale managed to successfully train Capuchin monkeys to understand and use currency. The result? The monkeys used their newfound currency to buy sex:

Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)

I’ll depend on crowdsourcing for the snarky comments here. I’d urge you to read the whole thing. To me what was fascinating is that once they learned the concept of money, the Capuchins pretty much behaved like people. As the article concludes:

But these facts remain: When taught to use money, a group of capuchin monkeys responded quite rationally to simple incentives; responded irrationally to risky gambles; failed to save; stole when they could; used money for food and, on occasion, sex. In other words, they behaved a good bit like the creature that most of Chen’s more traditional colleagues study: Homo sapiens.

(link via Wired Science)

UPDATE (James Joyner):  In looking for an illustration for this story (tip:  Don’t Google “monkey sex” photos at work…) I came across stories about how shrewd monkeys are at business and their strong sense of fair play. Make of that what you will.

Bumped to top from 0910 May 18.

Jim Henley, who knows from post titles, nominates Stephen Frug’s “When All You Have is Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Head” for Best Post Title Ever. Certainly, it’s a fine post title, playing off a well known aphorism with a slightly obscure — but not too obscure — Beatles reference while implying a wee bit of insanity and thus adding value as well as cleverness.

But the Best Post Title Ever?

Surely, if a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters for a million years will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare, fifteen million bloggers posting several times a day will eventually produce a better post title than that?

So, let’s have a contest wherein readers nominate and link their choices for Best Post Title Ever.

The American way to settle this would be to have several rounds of competition and have the nominated posts vetted by a committee consisting of a lesser member of the Jackson 5, a former Laker Girl who had a hit record or two twenty years ago, and an acerbic Brit. And preferably a call-in component wherein the technical limitations of the system make the outcome artificially close. Alas, I just don’t have the resources to put into that sort of thing.

Alternatively, we could have a system wherein people from each state — excepting Michigan and Florida — would each pick their favorite blog post title using whichever rules they came up with over a period of several months. The second, third, and fourth place winners in each state would get almost exactly as many points as the winners, so as to avoid hurt feelings and to ensure fairness. Unfortunately, using such a method wouldn’t reveal an answer until late summer, by which point we’d all lose interest.

So, instead, I’ll just make the decision unilaterally later in the week.

UPDATE: To clarify, just put your favorite post title in a comment below, highlight it, click the LINK button, and insert the URL.

The Herd Mentality Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AFP/File)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: FormerHostage – More ass than a Paris Hilton sleep-over.

Second: markm – While filming for the latest episode of “Wild Kingdom”, Jim Fowler obtained this amazing and rare shot of what appears to be a herd of superdelegates.

Third: Gollum – Supporters mistook Obama’s pledge to return the party to the grand days of Eeyore.

HONORABLE MENTION

yetanotherjohn – The trendiest thing today is to go to an Obama rally and get a little ass.

DaveD – Despite Hillary’s impressive showing in the PA primary, the superdelegates still seem to overwhelmingly favor Obama.

Stormy Dragon – You may think they’re Democrats, but they’re not–there’s a lot of asses in both parties.

john425 – We’ve got ‘em cornered and now it’s time for a little grab-ass.

Bithead – Gee, Jackie.. just think; It it wasn’t for the fact that nobody could draw a decent leech, we’d not be the symbol of a party.

Bithead – Donkeyote: an idealistic ass that howls at windmills and tilts at the moon… or something.

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

It has been noted that most Superdelegates exceed the maximum Federal Lead Level Content guidelines.

“Who’s givin’ the donkey note speech at the convention?”

Bill and Hillary enter on the scene from the left.

Karl Marx denigrates the electorate of Them asses.

Eventually even the monkeys had to capitulate that the asses were the masters of feces flinging.

“Ass me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies”

Just one short of Assinine

The Monday Contest is already countering Firedog.

Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . .

• Rodney is having a blast.
• Wizbang is bringin’ the heat.
• Wyatt Earp took the crash course.
• Public Pondering should’ve just called Orkin.
• Cowboy Blob has the new James Bond.
• Willisms is willing to work across the aisle.
• Right Pundits has The Biggest Loser
• Blonde Sagacity has a job training Trunk Monkeys.
• Brainfuel likes white and dark meat..

Other Humor:
Political Demotivation shouldn’t taunt Happy Fun Poll.
Icanhascheezburger welcomes you to the kitteh cult.
V the K always has the best pictures at Caption This!

To join in, start a Caption Contest at your blog, edit it to add a link to this post, and then send a TrackBack. If your blog doesn’t automatically generate one, use the Send TrackBack feature below. For more information, see this post.

Mike Huckabee knows he can’t beat John McCain in the primaries but thinks he might be able to win a brokered convention with a little help from Texas.

In an interview with 1200 WOAI news during his swing through Texas, longshot Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee outlined a strategy which has him not winning the GOP nomination outright, but pushing the nomination to the September Republican National Convention, which he says will turn to him as the most ‘conservative alternative.’

The ‘brokered convention’ plan is in stark contrast to Huckabee’s previous sunny predictions of a sweep to victory in the primaries and caucuses on the shoulders of adoring family values conservatives.

Huckabee said his ‘brokered convention’ strategy is predicated on a victory in Texas, the country’s largest Republican state. “We think Texas is an important state,” Huckabee told me. “We know how important it is to win Texas.” Huckabee says with an upset win in Texas, and a win in the Ohio Republican primary the same day, Huckabee could deny front runner John McCain the nomination in the primaries.

“If we win Texas, I think it changes the dynamics of this race. It could well go all the way to the convention. If the convention delegates pick the president, chances are they would pick the most conservative. I would be the one they would end up picking, if that’s the criteria.”

McCain is less than 200 delegates away and Mitt Romney has already instructed more than that many of his delegates to vote for McCain. It’s just incredibly unlikely that McCain won’t win the nomination outright.

If, however, the allegations of adultery and improper dealings with a lobbyist leveled in yesterday’s NYT hit piece have legs or some other event causes pledged delegates to break their vow and vote for someone other than McCain, it’s virtually inconceivable that Huckabee would be the beneficiary. If the party’s leadership takes the nomination into their own hands, a Mitt Romney or some dark horse candidate would be the more likely choice than the divisive Huckabee.

The irony here is that Huckabee is down to the Hillary Clinton Strategy: Win Texas and Ohio and hope to steal it at the convention.

AllahPundit sees a different parallel:

This marks the point, I think, where he’s actually started to believe his own “never say die” rhetoric as a way of coping with the fact that the ship is going down. It’s like Klaus Kinski on the raft at the end of “Aguirre” telling the spider monkeys about his plan to rule the world.

He provides a handy video clip for those of us who have never heard of, let alone seen, “Aguirre.”

via Memeorandum

Twice as many Americans believe in God and half again as many believe in a literal devil than the scientific theory of evolution, a new survey finds. Indeed, Darwin’s theory barely outpolls UFOs and witches.

More Americans believe in a literal hell and the devil than Darwin’s theory of evolution, according to a new Harris poll released on Thursday. It is the latest survey to highlight America’s deep level of religiosity, a cultural trait that sets it apart from much of the developed world. It also helps explain many of its political battles which Europeans find bewildering, such as efforts to have “Intelligent Design” theory — which holds life is too complex to have evolved by chance — taught in schools alongside evolution.

The poll of 2,455 U.S. adults from Nov 7 to 13 found that 82 percent of those surveyed believed in God, a figure unchanged since the question was asked in 2005. It further found that 79 percent believed in miracles, 75 percent in heaven, while 72 percent believed that Jesus is God or the Son of God. Belief in hell and the devil was expressed by 62 percent.

Darwin’s theory of evolution met a far more skeptical audience which might surprise some outsiders as the United States is renowned for its excellence in scientific research. Only 42 percent of those surveyed said they believed in Darwin’s theory which largely informs how biology and related sciences are approached. While often referred to as evolution it is in fact the 19th century British intellectual’s theory of “natural selection.”

[...]

What is perhaps surprising is that substantial minorities in America apparently believe in ghosts, UFOs, witches, astrology and reincarnation. The survey, which has a sampling error of plus or minus two percent, found that 35 percent of the respondents believed in UFOs and 31 percent in witches.

The findings are depressing, at least on the surface. My hope is that the results are mostly a function of poor question wording.

Granting the selection bias, most of the religious believers I know — which is to say, most of the people I know — believe that evolution and natural selection are undisputed facts about how life in the material universe works. A goodly number of them, though, might disagree with a specific question on Darwin’s theory. They would almost certainly reject the idea that humans evolved from monkeys, which is what many erroneously think Darwin taught.

Belief in religious characters is relatively uncomplicated. One would say they believed in God or the devil even if they only had a vague sense of those things, owing to the cultural norms of a Judeo-Christian society. Similarly, even those of us who don’t believe in flying saucers and little green men from Mars might acknowledge that people see flying objects which they are unable to identify.

Image source: The Pinnacle

The Buffalo CHPs Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AP Photo/Matt York)

The Winners:

First: Steven L. – “Oh, Jesus. Who was in charge of planning? You call THIS a Village People tribute?”

Second: yetanotherjohn – Picture snapped by illegal alien as he crosses the border.

Third: Scott_T – Location: Anywhere but downtown Los Angeles on May Day.

Honorable Mention:

physics geek – “Why yes, that IS a rubber glove.”

McGehee – “All this for a busted taillight?”

Roger – One more time, where’s Ponch?”

elliot – First the important stuff. Which one of you ate my donuts?

Rodney’s Bottom of The Barrel

“Yes I took exception to the belief that trained monkeys could do the job of stopping the flow illegal aliens… now for your lesson in Flinging Feces style Kung Fu.”

“No you won’t need no gun, we’re here to bag Desert Snipe, not shoot ‘em.”

“Aren’t you kinda short for a Border Trooper?”

“…and stay away from the Blue Oyster.”

The Thursday Contest is already throwing out the baby with the mawashi.

The Song of the Mouth Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

An Excellent contest with many great captions, some are honored below

The Winners:

First: Hodink – “Wait. I do have another announcement. It should surprise absolutely nobody that Bill Clinton could be Dannielynn Smith’s father.”

Second: charles austin – “Things took a turn towards the ugly as the DNC presidential nomination contest entered the talent phase.”

Third: DaveD – Hillary was convinced that if she didn’t look at him he really wasn’t there.

Honorable Mention:

Mike – It the wicked witch of the left and her flying monkeys

FormerHostage – The opening scene from a VERY disturbing porn film.

Sgt Fluffy – Sen Brown thinking: … hmmm … I have a rug like that in my bathroom…

Rodney’s Bottom of The Barrel

DRUDGEBREAKING: The case of the mysterious disappearance of Whitehouse curtains following the Clinton Administration has been solved. developing…

“uh wazzat … you’re singing a song with which I am not familar.”
“It’s the Star Spangled Banner.”

American Midol wannabes continue to annoy Simon Cowell.

“…and of course, Bill will be the man in charge when I am President.”

What another freakin’ zombie picture?

The Thursday Contest just can’t stop laughing.

It’s not that often that I find something new and well put together that meets my low standards for humor like sh*thouse at Pipingrad (apparently no longer creating new material), The Spong Monkeys at rathergood.com, or Weebl and Bob, but Loading Ready Run has really outdone themselves. I’ve made it through about a half dozen of the episodes, and I haven’t been disappointed so far.

A nun who had spent most of her life helping sick people was murdered today by Muslims retalliating for Pope Benedict’s remarks about the violent nature of Islam.

An elderly Italian nun who devoted her life to helping the sick in Africa was shot dead by two gunmen at a hospital Sunday in an attack possibly linked to worldwide Muslim anger toward Pope Benedict XVI. Sister Leonella, 65, was shot in the back four times by pistol-wielding attackers as she left the Austrian-run S.O.S. hospital at lunch time after finishing nursing school for trainee medics. Her bodyguard was also slain.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, which came just hours after a leading Somali cleric condemned the pope’s remarks last week on Islam and violence.

So much for there being no casualties in this wave of Muslim violence. Sadly, I suspect she will not be the last.

I disagree somewhat with Ed Morrissey here:

What should influence Europeans and the West is this repetition of the Prophet Cartoons ugliness all over again. The Muslims are not interested in a Socratic dialogue, such as the kind proposed by Benedict in his speech, if one actually bothered to read it. They completely reject any notion of critical thinking when it comes to their doctrines, their laws, and their beliefs. They can make all the comments they want about Jews being descended from pigs and monkeys and the “polytheism” of Christians, but if anyone utters a word of scholarly criticism about Islam, the murders begin until someone admits that Islam is better than any other faith.

I’m sure there are plenty of Muslims around the world who welcome such a dialogue. Indeed, they probably constitute a majority of educated Muslims. The problem, though, is that most Muslims are kept ignorant by their societies and there are plenty of radicals in influential positions poised to fan the flames whenever an incident like this presents the opportunity. (The similarity with the modern remnants of the American civil rights movement is striking in that regard, with the notable exception that Sharpton, Mfume, and their kind stop well short of fomenting violence.)

Patrick Frey joins me in noting the irony of protesting the suggestion that Islam is violent by rioting and murdering.

Nearly two weeks after referring to his opponent’s cameraman as “Macaca,” Senator George Allen has personally apologized to the UVA student.

An obscure word played for laughs from a mostly white crowd at the expense of a man of Indian descent clouds what has been a bright political career for Sen. George Allen, including any White House plans. The Republican, seeking a second term as he explores a 2008 presidential run, apologized directly Wednesday to the Democratic aide he targeted, then joined President Bush for a private fundraiser in the Virginia suburbs of Washington.

But the damage has been done and it will haunt Allen for a while, said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta and a specialist in presidential and congressional races. “Clearly this has damaged his presidential aspirations,” Black said in a telephone interview. “It just raises questions about his judgment and how sincere he is in how he deals with these kinds of issues.”

At an Aug. 11 rally with about 100 supporters at Breaks, Va., near the Kentucky border, Allen singled out S.R. Sidarth, a volunteer who was tracking Allen and videotaping his campaign events for Democrat Jim Webb, and twice called him “Macaca.” “Let’s give a welcome to Macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” Allen said over laughter and ovations to Sidarth, a 20-year-old of Indian ancestry who was born in Fairfax County. Macaca is a genus of monkeys including macaques. The name also could be spelled Makaka, which is a city in South Africa. Sidarth said he felt Allen tried to single him out by race.

Sidarth recorded Allen, Webb’s campaign posted the video on YouTube, and then the campaign alerted reporters. Within days, it became the dominant political story on network and cable news programs. Perhaps more damaging, it became grist for late-night talk shows and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” with Jon Stewart.

[...]

And wherever Allen goes, Black said, the video will be hard for Allen to shake because it shows him pointing to Sidarth and singling him out for derision, and because he smiled as he needled Sidarth, seemingly enjoying the moment. “He was giving no consideration to how this event would look if it went on TV,” Black said.

Allen tracked Sidarth down Wednesday at the University of Virginia where he had returned for senior year of classes and apologized to him personally, said campaign manager Dick Wadhams. “Senator Allen made a heartfelt apology. He told Sidarth he thought he would see him on the campaign trail, but Sidarth had headed back to U.Va., so we Googled his name, found his number and the senator called him this morning,” Wadhams said.

From the beginning, I thought Allen was singling Sidarth out, not for his race, but for being his opponent’s cameraman. If one listens to the tape, it’s clear that “Welcome to America” was making fun of the Washington, DC Beltway, not immigrants. And he was enjoying the moment because he was trying to be folksy and humorous.

The problem for Allen is that Sidarth was in fact a dark skinned fellow in a mostly white crowd and that the coincidence of calling him “Macaca,” a word that has racial overtones in cultures that Allen can be presumed to be familiar with–twice–is hard to explain benignly. The Allen campaign compounded the error by an arrogant dismissiveness when questioned and, even worse, by the Senator’s unbelievable explanation that he was referring to the man’s haircut.

Allen can recover from the incident but it’ll take a lot of work. This belated apology was a good start. He’s going to have to open up and provide a convincing backstory to explain how a California boy grew up with such a fondness for the Confederacy and cowboy boots. If he can do that, he may well emerge from this stronger than he went in. At least people know his name now.

The Blue Oyster Bikers Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar (MEXICO))

Winners:

First: Mark – You guys should have heard the crap Mel Gibson said to us when we pulled him over!

Second: charles austin – Bowling for Columbians.

Third: yetanotherjohn – Peyote, its not just for breakfast anymore.

Honorable Mention:

Bithead – “Aw, Jerry…You should have gone before we left!!”

Gollum – Antonio ended up in the middle that day as punishment for not showing up with enough pieces of “flair.”

Hodink – Los Angeles implements a new anti-terrorist tactic.

Gaijin Biker – Most TV critics agree that CHiPs jumped the shark in season 4, with the addition of Ponch’s ten long-lost brothers.

SgtFluffy – The Illegal Immigrants are becoming very creative in the efforts to cross the border

DaveD – There was some concern that the police response to petty crimes depicted on the show “Cops” was becoming a bit excessive.

Rodney’s Charles Austin’s and yetanotherjohn’s Bottom of The Barrel

yetanotherjohn – A spokesman for the Mexico City police force angrily denied charges that the police force was “nothing more than a bunch of trained monkeys in service to the drug lords”.

charles austin – Another job Americans won’t do.

yetanotherjohn – The concept came to me one night after I had swallowed my third worm.

charles austin – Good Lord, not another subjectively judged Olympic sport.

yetanotherjohn – The Hells Angels just hung their heads in shame and left town after seeing what they were up against.

charles austin – If you zoom in far enough you can read their buttons which say, “Vote for Pedro.”

yetanotherjohn – Hey Carlos, where’s the top guy Juan?… I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the last overpass.

The The Thursday contest has already gone to some captioner’s heads.

My wife and I went to the 10:00 p.m. showing of “Superman Returns” last night. No real spoilers below for any who have seen any of the pre-release publicity but my review is hidden after the jump just in case.

Overall, it was an enjoyable movie but not one that lived up to the hype, let alone an eighteen year wait. It wasn’t nearly as good as most of the other superhero movies that have come out over the last few years.

Bryan Singer is an excellent director but his X-Men films were far superior to this one. The special effects were excellent, especially compared to the Christopher Reeve “Superman” films, but nothing special in comparison to the X-Men, Spiderman, and Fantastic Four movies. The plot moved very slowly, with long setups for a rather mundane story.

The premise of the movie is that our hero departed five years earlier to explore Krypton after its remains were discovered by astronomers. Yet, all we learn of that trip is that the planet was “a graveyard.” Why, then, was he gone five years? One would think a man who can fly at light speed could have explored a barren planet and returned home in time for dinner. No explanation is offered.

The Fortress of Solitude as crystals from Krypton angle, one of the most annoying aspects of the Reeve “Superman” series given its departure from the comics (although since woven into the two television adaptations) is central to the plot of this film. That the crystals can be easily removed by human hands and dumped into water — “like sea monkeys!” — with literally Earth shattering effect struck me as highly implausible. And Luthor’s motivations for a plan that would kill “billions,” including destroying the wealth of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, were at best puzzling. How, exactly, he hoped to get rich with those people gone, especially living out on a barren Kryptonian-technology-laden island, was unexplained.

Singer is obviously a comic book fan and there were numerous clever homages to the genre throughout the movie. Not only did Brandon Routh look eerily like Reeve, especially in his Clark Kent guise–down to a 1970s haircut and outdated three piece suit and tie–but he worked in most of the standard cliches and even evoked the cover of Action Comics #1, where Superman made his debut.

Routh did a creditable turn as Superman and Clark Kent, although nothing spectacular. For my tastes, Reeve’s was the best “Superman” portrayal and Dean Cain’s (”Lois and Clark”) the best “Clark Kent.” (Tom Welling’s “Smallville” version is also compelling but a radical departure from the canon.)

Kate Bosworth was an excellent Lois Lane, portraying the role more powerfully than Margot Kidder. Mostly, I suspect, this is just a function of it being 2006, where a strong professional woman can be played effortlessly, vice 1978, where one had to introduce a campy “women’s libber” angle. She’s also, frankly, much better looking than Kidder, although perhaps no Teri Hatcher.

Kevin Spacey stole the show with his variation on Lex Luthor. His interpretation is much more theatrical than past versions, borrowing somewhat from Jack Nicholson’s Joker. He had several great lines and pulled off the role superbly. It’s been too long since I’ve seen the Gene Hackman version to compare them. It seems clear, though, that the Luthor role is the premier one in the Superman stable. Michael Rosenbaum’s portrayal in “Smallville” is probably my favorite, just in terms of showing the man’s brilliance and complexity, but it’s not fair to compare a 2-1/2 hour film with an episodic format.

Parker Posey was also quite funny in her portrayal of Kitty Kowalski, Luthor’s nitwit girl Friday. Like Valerie Perrine in the Reeve movies, though, one wondered why Luthor would consort with such an obviously stupid woman. Indeed, more so given Perrine’s rather obvious compensating qualities.

Overall, I’d say the movie is worth seeing in the theater but certainly not worth camping out overnight for. It’s a cultural event moreso than an ordinary movie, just because of the character’s staying power–now going on 70 years. If this were the debut of Superman, though, I don’t think he would catch on.

Nearly half of Americans would “definitely not vote for” Hillary Clinton , according to a new CNN poll.

With the presidential election more than two years away, a CNN poll released Monday suggests that nearly half of Americans would “definitely not vote for” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Respondents were asked whether they would “definitely vote for,” “consider voting for,” or “definitely not vote for” three Democrats and three Republicans who might run for president in 2008.

Regarding potential Democratic candidates, 47 percent of respondents said they would “definitely not vote for” both Clinton, the junior senator from New York who is running for re-election this year, and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party’s candidate in 2004. Forty-eight percent said the same of former Vice President Al Gore, who has repeatedly denied he intends to run again for president.

Among the Republicans, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani fared better than the Democrats, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush fared worse. Only 30 percent said they would “definitely not vote for” Giuliani; 34 percent said that of McCain. As for Bush, brother of the current president, 63 percent said there was no way he would get their vote. The younger Bush has denied interest in running for president in 2008.

Among all choices, Clinton had the highest positive number; of those polled, 22 percent said they would “definitely vote for” her.
Giuliani was next with 19 percent, followed by Gore with 17 percent, Kerry with 14 percent, McCain with 12 percent and Bush at 9 percent.

Polls this early are rather silly, since only we junkies are paying much attention. Further, polls without a “likely voter” screen are almost completely worthless. Still, that doesn’t mean they’re not fun. They’re essentially in the same spirit as the preseason guides that come out before sports seasons, giving devoted fans something to talk about before the games start.

Joe Gandelman notes, “it isn’t just Hillary Clinton who’s getting the negatives. If you look at it, it seems to be people related to past candidates or people who’ve run on a national ticket before.”

John Podhoretz agrees “the data are meaningless” and goes so far as to say “poll is an absurdity.”

Ed Morrissey thinks “the poll is notable for who has apparently been left out: Mark Warner and Barack Obama for the Democrats (as well as John Edwards, who has slipped through all the cracks), and Mitt Romney, George Allen, and Condi Rice for the GOP.”

One of the Scared Monkeys is amused that Clinton’s 22% is lower than the worst approval rating George W. Bush has ever had.

Jazz Shaw thinks Giuliani’s strong showing bears watching. “[I]f the GOP puts up Rudy in ‘08 and he does carry the Empire State, the race is over and the Democrats take home another loss.”