Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum writes, by way of mocking it, that Republican talk of “'chronic' joblessness is...a way of suggesting that some of the unemployed are shiftless and lazy.” The only problem with Drum's taunt is that some of the unemployed really are shiftless and lazy.

Or to put it in a less loaded way, what is so controversial about suggesting that some – not all, but some – of those American workers who are currently drawing extended unemployment benefits would get jobs if their benefits were cut off?

Anecdotally, most of us know a few hard luck folks who've lost their jobs in the last few years and haven't been able to find anything in spite of their best efforts. But we probably  also know folks out of work and drawing unemployment benefits who could find work again in a pinch. They just don't want to do the jobs that they can get right now. Thanks to Uncle Sam, they don't have to.

Among economists, it is not at all controversial to say that subsidizing unemployment leads to more unemployment. The only question is, How much more? The Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisers reportedly looked into the unprecedented extension of unemployment benefits as one possible culprit of our current mass joblessness.

Former Bush White House economic analyst Keith Hennessey supports the extended benefits. He nevertheless concedes that the effects on employment are not negligible. Using estimates that are likely overgenerous, he found that “for every nine people out of work, one is being discouraged from taking a new job because of the expanded benefits.”

That doesn't sound so bad, but what if the actual numbers were one of every five people receiving unemployment could find work? How about one in three? At what point would it be worth insisting on a hard deadline to cut off unemployment benefits and trying to find other remedies – including welfare and private charity – to help those hard cases who really couldn't hack it in this awful economy?

Republican messaging during their brief filibuster of another unemployment extension was all over the map. At one end of the spectrum, you had the pay-for-it folks. Republican senatorial hopeful Dino Rossi blasted Senator Patty Murray for not finding off-setting cuts in federal spending to “pay for” the unemployment extension. At the other end, you had tough love crowd, including Majority Leader Senator Reid's Republican challenger Sharron Angle, who argued that cutting back unemployment benefits was the surest way to boost employment.

My sense is that the tough love crowd is nearer to the mark on this one. But their approach would be far from painless.

In the wake of his vote for cap-and-trade legislation, Republicans had high hopes for knocking off Democratic Rep. Rick Boucher in this R+11 district that swung heavily against Democrats over the past decade.  But according to SurveyUSA, they've got some work to do.  The fourteen-term Rep. leads his opponent, GOP Rep. Morgan Griffith, by a 52%-39% margin.  Griffith has some room to grow, as Boucher is getting more-or-less unanimous support among liberals and moderates in the district, as well as 32% of the conservatives.  Griffith will need to convince those conservatives to come back to the Republican fold if he is going to become competitive in this.

For the first time, a new poll finds that Americans have a more “favorable” view of Bill Clinton than Barack Obama.

About six-in-ten Americans have a favorable view of Clinton; about half the public says the same about Obama, according to the Gallup Poll.

George W. Bush's favorable rating has also risen. His standing, 45 percent, is 10 points higher than his standing in March 2009.

The “favorable” measure is used to capture Americans' views of the personal presidency, less than job performance. The favorable rating generally exceeds a president's job approval, as with Obama today. Unusually, at the height of the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's approval soared above his favorable rating. At the time, Americans approved of his job performance but not his personal behavior.

It's common for the public to take a kinder view of ex-presidents, in part because they are out of the trenches and partly because there is an American desire to venerate the presidency.

Republican Rand Paul continues to lead Democrat Jack Conway by a significant, yet single-digit margin in the race for Kentucky's open Senate seat. A new Rasmussen poll finds Paul leading with 49% to Conway's 41%.

The result is not much different than the poll released in late June, as Conway lost a point and Paul stayed even. Since then, Paul and Conway have announced raising similar amounts of money in the second fundraising quarter, though Conway loaned his campaign $400,000, which pushed his total ahead of Paul's.

The Rasmussen poll also found that only 27 percent of likely voters believe the economy is improving, compared with 50 percent who think it's getting worse. The survey of 750 likely voters was conducted July 20 with a margin of error of +/- 4%.

The two candidates are running to replace retiring Republican Jim Bunning.

On Tuesday, my column explained why it's not “always the economy, stupid.” It focused on recent columns by Paul Krugman (here) and Ezra Klein (here).

The response from several wonk-tastic bloggers was telling. Telling, because it betrays a common vice within all corners of the political-blog world: the application of different standards to intellectual allies than others.

George Washington University's John Sides responded at the smart blog Monkey Cage. Sides created the graph behind Klein's column. Fellow political scientist Jonathan Bernstein offered another notable post. These are two valuable and informed voices. But in this case, they are also drifting from the academic values they preach.

Allow me to summarize the Bernstein and Sides' argument: okay Kuhn, your right, but the Krugman-Klein cause is our cause, so be cool...

Bernstein wrote that my column is “claiming to debunk what he calls ‘economic fatalism.'” It's not about “claims.” It did debunk the Klein-Krugman premise. And so does the poli sci literature. Bernstein and Sides know that.

Bernstein writes, “So, yes, the economy isn't the only thing that matters in elections.” He cites intuitive examples, like war or a fringe candidate. Sides' agrees.

Sides soon contends, however, that my “literal reading of Klein and Krugman is unnecessarily uncharitable.”

Has he read these two men--especially Klein!--over the years? (I asked Sides that over email.) And take note, Columbia Journalism Review's Greg Marx agreed with this “uncharitable” point.

Sides and Bernstein justify, in effect, misinforming readers. Notably, Klein has consistently espoused this economic fatalist case on his blog. You see, Krugman and Klein argue that “all” one needs to know to predict (especially presidential) elections--or come really close--is the economy (again, untrue). I also pointed out that they greatly exaggerate economic causation.

Sides responded: “These are smart guys. They understand correlation vs. causation.”

I'm sure they do know about correlation vs. causation. But this is not a matter of how “smart” a journalist is; it's a matter of what they report.

Sides closes:

It's actually valuable to state the economic case as starkly as Klein and Krugman did. In my blogger persona, I sometimes do that too. There is strategic value in doing so. … If it takes a statement like Klein's (or some of mine) to pull that view towards one that acknowledges that economic performance is the key driver, then that's fine with me.

Digest that. Sides' consistently hits journalists for exaggerating campaign effects. Yet Sides thinks it's okay for Klein to exaggerate economic effects. I get this, kinda. Yes, the economy matters more than this or that gaffe. But it's still a matter of getting facts right. That's a journalistic and academic value.

Bernstein also argues:

I think Kuhn underestimates the extent to which it's a major achievement to have the Washington Post publish an article devoted to the evidence on that sort of thing.

Major achievement? Ahem. This is not new ground. This econ myth is decades old, as I've belabored. Let's take one example.

The headline of Klein's column was: “It's always the economy, stupid.”

The headline of a column written one decade ago in the Financial Times: "It's always the economy, stupid.”

Yes, same headline and same general case. Here we have a bank director of economics arguing in spring 2000 that Al Gore will win and “it will not be close.” This was, as I noted yesterday, the campaign prognosticators consensus at the time partly because they relied too heavily on the economy.

But why should we care?

Firstly, it's a misread of voters. One example: to suggest it's always about the economy will be news to all those working class whites who care deeply about abortion (and that pulls them right) or the reverse among many upper class whites.

This economic fatalism also suggests the industry of politics is not only polluted with BS but is entirely BS. As the 2000 column's sub-headline put it, “forget all the paraphernalia of campaigning and voting.” I'll leave that fight to the operatives and hardcore campaign reporters. But it really need not be so either-or.

It's also a professional issue. After all, these are journalists. They misreported facts. And as CJR's Marx put it in his post:

Columnists and bloggers (present company included) should be precise with their prose and their analysis, and should be held to account when they aren't.

Drip, drip, drip.

Today, the Daily Caller has another Liberals Behaving Badly Journolist story.

Shocking revelation #1: NPR producer Sarah Spitz confessed to hundreds of her closest friends and colleagues that if Rush Limbaugh were having a massive heart attack right in front of her, she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out.”

Shocking revelation #2: Bloomberg reporter Ryan Donmoyer said last summer's town meeting protests reminded him “of the Beer Hall fracases of the 1920s.”

Shocking revelation #3: Journolisters really, really hate Fox News and a few of them said that the Obama administration ought to strip the network of its briefing privileges or, worse, yank its license.

As I said yesterday, this sort of thing is likely to continue for quite some time. What was thought to be off the record will not stay hidden. Journolist creator and manager Ezra Klein ought to face facts and release the whole archive.

Somehow I missed the minor flap caused last week by the Weekly Standard's decision to sell an Obama Stress Head toy. The Standard's own ad copy explains

Go ahead. Give the Commander in Chief a big squeeze. With our soft, mushy Obama Stress Head, you can crush those half-baked liberal ideas before they do any more damage. Plus... you can build up an iron grip at the same time. Pin his ears back, turn that smile upside down. Come on... you know you want to.

Quite a few folks were upset about this. One blogger even compared a promotional photo to the infamous Jesse Helms ad, because a "big white male hand" is shown "crushing an African American head."

CNN highlighted the fact that the Obama Stress Head will likely be part of a larger merchandising effort by the conservative weekly:

The site also promises upcoming, similar crushable toys in the likeness of "more of your favorite liberals – Pelosi, Biden and more."

AZ-Sen:  We've moved this to Safe Republican.  The likely rating was predicated on the possibility of J.D. Hayworth upsetting McCain in the primary.  But the polls just aren't showing Hayworth in any danger of catching fire, and McCain is dominating the head-to-head matchups.

WV-Sen:  Republican chances of picking up Robert Byrd's Senate seat took a hit with the announcement that Rep. Shelley Moore Capito won't be running for Senate.   In light of that, Republicans are scrambling for a candidate, and we move the race to Likely Democrat.

IA-03:  Boswell is in some trouble, but his GOP opponent has only raised $240,000.  Des Moines isn't exactly the world's most expensive media market, and outside groups will probably get involved, but we nevertheless move this to Leans Democrat from Tossup.

ID-01:  This is pretty counter-intuitive given the heavy Republican tilt of the district, but Democrat Walt Minnick has an extremely conservative  voting record.  Moreover, his GOP opponent, Raul Labrador,  is an ally of former Rep. Bill Sali, who was controversial enough to lose to Minnick in 2008.  Labrador closed the Second Quarter with $60, 000 cash-on-hand to Minnick's $1.8M.  This race looks like a leans Democrat race for now, not a tossup.

IL-11:  Two polls have shown Halvorsen trailing, and her GOP opponent is raising funds smartly.  She has a pretty solidly liberal voting record, and we are moving to Leans GOP pickup.

IL-17:  Phil Hare has had some trouble with YouTube videographers.  And his opponent now has about $300K in the bank.  A recent campaign poll shows Hare trailing.  This isn't an overwhelmingly Democratic district, so given all of this, Leans Democrat seems about right.

NC-08: Larry Kissell raised only $100K last quarter, while he drew the more electable opponent out of the GOP primary.  This is looking more and more like a GOP pickup.

NC-11:  Heath Shuler is pretty conservative (though he voted yes on cap-and-trade), and his opponent hasn't been successful raising money.  Shuler isn't out of the woods -- a 1994-style gale could knock him out.  But for right now this race isn't looking terribly competitive, and we're moving to Likely Democrat.

On RCP, John Stossel argues that America needs to make legal immigration easier. Also, Kyle Trygstad writes about the GOP gubernatorial primary in Georgia, where Karen Handel and Nathan Deal finished first and second and will meet in an August 10 runoff for the chance to run against former Gov. Roy Barnes.

And on RCS, Art Spander documents the current struggles of American golfers.

President Obama's approval rating has reached a new low according to a national Quinnipiac survey released this morning. The poll finds that just 44 percent of registered voters approve of the job he's done as president, and 48 percent disapprove. Two months ago, 48 percent approved and 43 percent did not.

Obama now barely has a positive approval rating in the RCP Average of recent national polls.

On the issues: 56 percent of voters disapprove of his handling of the economy; by a 46-43 percent margin, voters disapprove of his handling of foreign policy; 51 percent disapprove of his handling of the Gulf oil spill; and 58 percent disapprove of his handling of illegal immigration, including 60 percent who said the federal government's lawsuit against Arizona was a bad idea.

"Today, his support among Democrats remains strong, but the disillusionment among independent voters, who dropped from 52 – 37 percent approval to 52 – 38 percent disapproval in the last 12 months, is what leads to his weakness overall when voters start thinking about 2012,” said Quinnipiac assistant director Peter A. Brown.

Just 36 percent of voters said they'd vote for Obama over an unnamed Republican candidate in 2012, compared with 39 percent who would vote for the Republican. By a 48-40 percent margin, voters say Obama does not deserve re-election. Independents not only now disapprove of Obama, but also say by a 37-27 percent margin that they would choose a Republican over Obama in 2012.

"In politics a month is a lifetime and we have 28 months until November of 2012," said Brown. "But politicians with re-elect numbers at 40 percent bear watching."

These numbers have ramifications not just in two years, but also this year when Democrats are fighting to hold onto control of the House -- and perhaps the Senate. The survey found Republicans leading the generic ballot by a 5-point margin, 43-38 percent.

Because the GOP often has a 5-point advantage in turnout, a 5-point lead in the generic ballot test among registered voters looks even worse for Democrats. A year ago, Democrats led by 8 points.

The survey of 2,181 registerd voters was conducted July 13 – 19 with a margin of error of +/- 2.1 percentage points.