Ferrablog

...until this.

Tom Petty has the theme for Bush-Cheney 04:

(CNN) -- As Americans express growing unease about Iraq, President Bush's job approval rating has taken a hit, according to a poll released Friday by CNN and Time magazine.

That development appears to be helping Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. He wins the support of 51 percent of likely voters, compared to 46 percent for Bush. In February, Bush was ahead of Kerry by two percentage points.

If independent Ralph Nader is among the choices, Kerry gets 49 percent, Bush 44 percent and Nader 6 percent.

Bush's overall job approval rating fell from 49 percent to 46 percent since the last CNN/Time poll on April 8, while his disapproval rating rose from 47 percent to 49 percent -- the first time that more people disapproved of Bush's job performance than approved.

The hits just keep on coming.

A little late in posting on this, so I'll keep it brief: H-U-G-E win by the Lightning last night, taking Game 3 of the conference final against Philly. One stat flashed during the game last night was that 24 of 27 (88.9%) of the winners of Game 3 in conference finals tied 1-1 have gone on to win the series. I don't know how that stacks up with other rounds, but it seems to make sense at this stage of the playoffs, when for the most part the teams are relatively evenly matched. Having to take 3 of 5 when the other team only needs to win 2 more is a tough task when your opponent is a tough one.

Another stat that was the target of some derision on usenet was the Lightning's all-time record in Games 3. Well, who's laughing now, as the Lightning go to 6-0 on that count with last night's win? (Incidentally, their record in Games 4 is 3-2, and their bugaboo game is Game 2, where they're 1-5 with the only win coming, of course, against Montreal in the last round.)

As for the game, I thought the Lightning dominated for all but the final 10-12 minutes of Period 2. The key is that they came out of the second period still up 2-0. And the two goals that put away the game in the third were two of the sweetest you'll ever see: St. Louis' breakout pass to Lecavalier, and then the tic-tac-toe passing between Roy, St. Louis and Richards that opened up the Flyers D like a soft peanut.

A Lightning win in Game 4 would effectively end the series; a loss still leaves them with home ice advantage. We'll also see if the injury to Philly's top D-man, Marcus Ragnarsson, is serious enough to keep him out (he may have a broken hand from a Freddy Modin shot).

6 wins from the Cup.

The National Review's blog, The Corner, is just providing too much material to ignore today.

Let's start with this title of this piece by torture supporter John "Kick one for me" Derbyshire. Before reading the text, I could have sworn he was describing George W. Bush.

Then, Rich Lowry blasts Slate's Tim Noah for quoting him out of context:

Over at Slate, Tim Noah hits me from as he puts it, “Blame[ing] Quentin Tarantino” for Abu Ghraib. To support his case, he quotes this paragraph from my column earlier this week: "Consider the iconic film of the 1990s, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. It includes a scene of the rape of a man imprisoned and kept as a sexual slave, which prompted laughs in theaters. The victim, 'The Gimp,' became a figure of fun. Tarantino's latest, the Kill Bill movies, present the same romance of power and violence, arbitrarily and stylishly wielded. Cruelty, Tarantino tells us, can be fun."

The very next sentence, which Noah didn’t see fit to quote is this one: “This is not to say that the filmmaker, or anyone besides those who committed and condoned the acts, is in any way responsible for Abu Ghraib.” That would seem at least, uh, to complicate Noah’s case that I’m “Blame[ing] Quentin Tarantino.”

While what Lowry says is technically true, he's trying to be too cute by half with this disclaimer. If his disclaimer is true, then why did he even bring up Quentin Tarantino in the first place, unless he was trying to assign some blame. Lowry made it a point to state that Tarantino tells us "cruelty can be fun". Additionally, Lowry couldn't even get the character of "The Gimp" right, as he acknowledged:

A final note: I messed up that scene from Pulp Fiction. It’s apparently not The Gimp who gets raped, although he is kept as a sexual slave.

Hell, that's not even right - the Gimp is a buddy of Maynard and Zed in their lair of torture.

Next, Lowry approvingly quotes the following Email and titles it "A Call for Carl Levin to resign":

E-mail: "I was so furious at Carl Levin for questioning Rumsfeld in that self-righteous way that I tried to find out about prison conditions in Michigan. I found out that in 1996, Michigan was one of five states investigated by Human Rights Watch which found out about sexual assault and other abuses by the prison guards. Though I live in Ohio, I wrote Carl Levin suggesting that maybe the prison guards had raped women prisoners on his orders, since he was trying to imply during his questioning of the Secretary of Defense that Rumsfeld and President Bush must have given the orders for the Iraq prison guards to abuse the prisoners."

Aside from the specious comparative reasoning involved here, the fact is that Levin is a federal officer - one of Michigan's two U.S. Senators. Therefore, he is no position of authority over the political apparatus of the State of Michigan. The proper analogy to Bush would be to Jennifer Granholm, the Governor of Michigan, and to Rumsfeld, the head of the state Department of Corrections. Levin has nothing to do with the prison conditions in Michigan, nor is he in any way responsible for them, ultimately or otherwise.

I think we've found a place where Bush administration officials can spend some time next year, once they're no longer in office.

This CBS News poll out tonight shows Bush's approval rating at a scant 44%, the lowest of his presidency. The poll also shows that only 29% believe the war in Iraq was worth the cost.

To get some perspective on these numbers, read this Mark Mellman piece. Yes, Mellman works for Kerry. But there's no arguing with his numbers:

In the latest Gallup poll, John Kerry leads George Bush by five points among registered voters when Nader is included, and by 6 when he is not. How do we know just how strong a showing that is for Kerry?

Looking at the history of presidential races is one approach. No challenger has ever done as well against an elected incumbent at this point in the cycle. Every incumbent who won re-election had a double-digit lead over his challenger at this stage. Lyndon Johnson led Barry Goldwater by 59 points in the spring of ’64. Bill Clinton led Bob Dole by 14 points, Ronald Reagan led Walter Mondale by 17 and Richard Nixon was ahead of George McGovern by 11.

Of course, some incumbents who went on to lose were doing better than Bush is today. The president’s father led Clinton by six points at this stage but was beaten anyway.

Thus, Kerry’s margin is 11 points better than was Bill Clinton’s at a similar point in time against Bush I. What, you haven’t seen that “Kerry stronger than Clinton” headline?

Starting to look like Bush has fallen and now can't get up.

The Lightning took last night off, losing 6-2 to the Flyers, so I'll do the same here. Remember, they're 5-0 all-time in Games 3, although now that this stat has been thrown out there enough, I'm afraid it might be time for it to be contradicted.