† Chicago On The Potomac: In a post for the Serious Medicine Strategy blog, Jim Pinkerton takes David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Barack Hussein Obama to task for this quote in a Washington Post article: "I know there is great value associated in this town with the straight right jab and the occasional knee to the groin. He'll throw the jab when he sees it, when he feels it's necessary. But he's not likely to throw the knee." Writes Pinkerton:

Once again, the White House illustrates that it is lost on process, as opposed to substance. … [P]rocess, and toughness, are not ends in themselves, at least as far as the voters are concerned. In a small "d" democratic country, if you aren't offering something that people want, then people won't accept the offer, period. …

Listening to such talk, who doubts that the Chicago-born Axelrod has memorized Sean Connery's famous riff in the 1987 movie, "The Untouchables," in which Connery tells Kevin Costner, "You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone." …

In the brief period that Axelrod and his fellow tough-guy, Rahm Emanuel, are in the White House, they will discover that the key to accomplishing something for Barack Obama is not proving whether they are tough enough, but rather, on proving whether they are adroit enough to find a package that can be enacted. …

[W]ith a big presidential speech coming up on Wednesday, we will see how far Axelrod & Co. get by threatening to knee people in the groin.

† Putting The “Boo” In Boomer (second item): The Washington Post’s Hank Stuever is fed up with the spate of “40^th anniversaries” being commemorated this year: aside from Woodstock, the first episodes of “Scooby Doo,” “The Brady Bunch,” "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "Sesame Street." Stuever writes: “I can't do 1969 anymore. Shaggy said it best, gang: Let's get outta here.” Yeah, let’s fast-forward to the ‘80s. That’s a decade The Stiletto feels nostalgia for – mostly because she can remember it – which is why Michael Jackson’s death hit her harder than such things usually do (second and third items on the page).

† Is This Any Way To Run A Transition?: One more person got added to the rolls of the unemployed during the Labor Day week-end, White House green jobs czar Van Jones - the twice-arrested, self-described Communist/Black Nationalist/Revolutionary (video links) - who heeded calls by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) and other conservatives and Repubs that he resign because of anti-white and hyperpartisan statements (video links) made before joining the Obama administration. The administration’s much-hyped vetting process was waived for Jones (video link), because he was either too “low level” or too indispensable (the White House is talking out of both sides of its mouth) to determine whether anything in his background  whould disqualify him from serving in the West Wing. The Washington Post reports:

Jones, a towering figure in the environmental movement, had issued two public apologies in recent days. One was for signing a petition in 2004 from the group 911Truth.org that questioned whether Bush administration officials "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war," and the other for using a crude term to describe Republicans in a speech he gave before joining the administration.

His previous involvement with the now-defunct Bay Area radical group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which had Marxist roots, also emerged as an issue. And on Saturday his advocacy on behalf of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of shooting a Philadelphia police officer in 1981, threatened to further widen the controversy.

A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter, said Sunday that Jones's past was not studied as intensively as other advisers because of his relatively low rank.

Jones's position, for example, did not require Senate confirmation. So he avoided the kind of vetting Cabinet officials were subjected to.

Reportedly, our “post-racial” president did not order Jones to be dismissed, or ask for his resignation.

There is a revolution coming, but it won’t be the one that Jones was working towards. It will be to overthrow Obama’s powerful czars.

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Obama Already A Lame Duck?): Writing for The Huffington Post, pollster John Zogby reports that in the most current poll his company conducted (4,518 likely voters, surveyed from August 28 to 31), 48 percent disapprove of President Barack Hussein Obama's job performance, 42 percent approve. “The big story,” he writes is that Obama has begun to lose support amongst Dems and young voters:

In a similar interactive poll done six weeks ago, 88% of Democrats approved of Obama's job performance. That percentage is now down to 75%, a significant drop of 13 points. Meanwhile, there is only slight change among Republicans and Independents.

Obama has lost even more support among 18-29-year-old voters, whose approval fell by 18 points over that time. The Democrats may be able to count on older, die hard party members to come out and vote, even when they may be disappointed. But those young voters could very easily sour on the Democrats and politics itself if Obama does not deliver on his message of change.

More ominously for Obama, pollsters and pundits are already handicapping a 2012 rematch between Obama and Hillary Clinton. Here’s Scott Rasmussen’s round-up of relevant polls conducted by his company, which was prompted by a discussion between MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson about whether Obama will face a challenger from his own party:

In a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the nights of July 30 and 31, 44% of voters said Clinton was at least somewhat likely to challenge Obama in 2012. …

Forty-six percent (46%) thought a Clinton challenge in the next presidential election cycle was unlikely ….

Interestingly, the numbers were almost identical among just Democratic voters alone, including 17% who said a Clinton challenge in 2012 was very likely and 16% who said it was not at all likely. …

[L]iberal voters, who are the most outraged by the potential elimination of the public option, also were already evenly divided over the possibility of an Obama-Clinton match-up in 2012.

Forty-eight percent (48%) saw it as a possibility, while 49% did not. …

At that time, 53% of voters had a favorable opinion of Clinton versus 43% who have an unfavorable view of her. …

Obama’s approval ratings, by contrast, have been in negative territory for weeks in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Obama - inspiring in theory, but underwhelming in actuality - will know for sure that he’s on his way to being a one-term wonder (à la former NYC Mayor David Dinkins) when pollsters start handicapping Hillary’s chances against declared Repub candidates.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times): The New York Post reports that celebrity photog Annie Leibovitz “isn't just a deadbeat - she's a thief, an Italian photographer says”:

In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, Paolo Pizzetti says the embattled shutterbug to the stars passed two of his pictures off as her own in a calendar.

Now he's suing the legendary photographer for $300,000 in damages, which is the least of her financial woes.

If Leibovitz cannot repay a $24 million loan from high-end pawn shop Art Capital by October 1^st - the deadline was extended from September 8^th by New York State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried - she will have to declare bankruptcy or turn over the photo catalog and homes she put up as collateral.

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, (Islamo)Fascist Fashionistas): Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein – whom New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls “the Rosa Parks of Khartoum” - was convicted public indecency for wearing pants at an outdoor cafe and jailed for one month when she refused to pay a fine, reports the Los Angeles Times. Under Islamic Sharia she could have received 40 lashes. Hussein's attorney said his client plans to appeal the verdict to the nation's highest court.