Stuff to read (3/18/10): Obama, SCOTUS, Pakistan, and Glenn Beck

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Check these out, all highly recommended:

-- Media Matters: "The media myth of Obama's 'falling poll numbers'," by Eric Boehlert. Key quote: "Feeding off right-wing talking points, political journalists love to push the idea that Obama's polling numbers are in the tank and that he's fading fast. It's all part of the preferred, CW narrative that his entire presidency is slipping away. (It must now be 'save[d],' according to Newsweek.)"

-- The New Republic: "POTUS v. SCOTUS," by Jeffrey Rosen. Key quote: "In battles between a popular president and an anti-majoritarian Court, it's almost always the president who prevails. Using the Court as a punching bag puts Obama in the company of his greatest predecessors, Jefferson, Lincoln, and both Roosevelts -- all of whom bashed the Court for thwarting the will of the people. As long as he plays his cards carefully, Obama has much to gain from challenging John Roberts, and the Roberts Court has much to lose." (See also my recent post at HuffPo on the spineless chief justice.)

-- Der Spiegel: "The Football Stitchers of Sialkot," by Hasnain Kazim. Key quote: "The city of Sialkot in Pakistan produces as many as 60 million hand-stitched footballs in a World Cup year. The firms here are running out of new workers since child labor was abolished. Western buyers may have a clear conscience, but the children of Sialkot now toil in the local brickworks instead."

-- Chicago Sun-Times: "Jesus was a Nazi. So's your preacher," by Roger Ebert. The great film critic addresses Glenn Beck's attack on "social justice," including in a religious context, claiming it is code for both Communism and Nazism. Key quote: "Does Glenn Beck speak for average Americans? His logic indicates they must be attending churches that preach Communism and Nazism from the pulpit every Sunday. Why are they so slow to catch on? Now that Beck has alerted them, where can they flee to worship? What will become of them? They have been cast out into the wilderness, where nothing makes sense anymore. The lonely, barren, ignorant wilderness, silent but for the gnashing of Glenn Beck."