We all like President Obama, because he is, after all, as good a president as we could get. But he isn’t as good a president as we deserve. And I say that knowing full well that as a society, we don’t deserve very much. By industrial nation norms, we are distinctly on the bad side of average. But you know something: better politicians would make us better. And you know what stops us from having better politicians? Bad journalism: the kind of journalism that defines what the Democrats and Republicans think as the Overton Window—regardless of how rightward both parties drift; the kind of journalism that delivers no penalty for the worst lies and demagoguery; the kind of journalism that sees its product as commodity instead of truth.

This isn’t to say there isn’t a lot of good journalism. It just means that it is mostly done in the shadows. ProPublica published a great article today by Dafna Linzer, Obama Has Granted Clemency More Rarely Than Any Modern President. This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy! Liberals will defend the President, “He can’t do anything else: he’s black!” Or, “He used to smoke pot!” Or “He admitted to using cocaine!” My response: those facts just make him an even bigger asshole.

Cannabis is a Schedule 1 narcotic. If he had been arrested by federal agents, he would have spent years in jail. There would have been no Harvard Law School. There would have been no presidency of the Law Review. And there such as shit would have been no President of the United States of America! He must know this. You would think it would make him a little more understanding. A little more empathic. A little less of a total dick.

How big a dick is he? In the last roughly 4 years, President Obama has pardoned 22 people. He has declined 1,019 other cases. That’s 1 out 50. How does it compare to other presidents? Ronald Reason: 1-3; Bush Sr: 1-16; Clinton: 1-8; Bush Jr: 1-33. Note: the cocaine sniffers are by far the worst.

But hey, maybe those asking for pardons are just worse than they used to be: terrorists and such. Not so much. Dafna Linzer:

I’m not suggesting that Romney would be better. But my feeling is that any president would be a hell of a lot better if the media were more interested in stories like this.

Chase Whiteside of New Left Media is an amazing young documentary filmmaker. I came upon the video below over at Hullabaloo: Ohio Romney Rally—Interviews with Supporters. It is just amazing. I know there are ignorant fools of all political stripes. But Whiteside is hardly asking “gotcha” questions. I can forgive the guy who thinks that Buddhists are trying to push their religion on us all. And I can forgive the people that don’t seem to have a clue what Mitt Romney’s policies are. (This is most of them.) But the anger and hatred that comes through with some of them is palpable.

One woman really struck me. She leveled a criticism of Obama that we are all very familiar with: Obama said he would unite the country but instead he has divided it. Even without knowing all the facts, this is the kind of claim—regardless of which side it comes from—that embarrasses me. It is too pat. There is no way that this is the whole story, even if the criticism is basically valid. Of course, the criticism is not valid.

It doesn’t take much digging to find that the claim is at best unfair. Let’s just look at the most obvious example: healthcare reform. Obama did not want an individual mandate. That was a Republican idea—you know, the whole libertarian canard of “rights and responsibilities.” But the President compromised and gave the Republicans their individual mandate. Then the President wanted a public option that people could buy instead of private insurance. (Note: there is no reason to be against the public option except that you want to protect the private insurance industry.) Again the President compromised. The Republicans had gotten the bill they had for years said they wanted. The result: not one Republican in the House or Senate voted for the ACA. Not one!

After that, how can anyone possibly blame President Obama for not being a uniter? He clearly made a major good faith effort to work with Republicans. The only criticism you can make against him is that he was naive. He should have known that the Republicans would do everything possible to block him and he should have gone in and tried to coerce the Republicans. I agree with that take on the President. But that is not what people mean when they claim that he should have united Washington.

What these people seem to believe—in part because this is one of Romney’s main talking points—is that Obama came into office with all of these socialist ideas that he tried to cram down the throats of the Republicans. This is manifestly not true. I cannot see such thinking as anything but willful ignorance. The people want to believe it because it gives them an excuse for supporting Mitt Romney. And as you can see in Chase Whiteside’s video: they don’t have any actual reasons for supporting him.

Tonight, Nate Silver’s model has again increased President Obama’s chances to winning the electoral college to 81.4%. He predicts that he will also win the popular vote 50.5% to 48.4%. Perhaps most striking, he predicts that Obama has roughly a 38% chance of winning 332 electoral votes or more. A win of 332 electoral votes would mean that Obama won Florida, which is looking more and more likely, but hardly likely in an absolute sense. A win 347 electoral votes would mean that Obama almost won North Carolina. This is far less likely.

Here is The Young Turks on conservative denial about Nate Silver and his model:

Mustang Bobby over at Bark Bark Woof Woof has a fun snarky article about George Will’s attempt to speak for the beau monde in all his bow tied crustiness—you know that Barack Obama is just a working class kid?! Of course, George Will is only part of the privileged class because of all the money he’s made as an apologist for it. He comes from a middle class family in Illinois.

Although David Brooks does not put on quite the airs of George Will, this is only because he is one more generation removed from the inventor of snob conservatism: William F. Buckley. Dean Baker tells us that David Brooks Is Upset that President Obama Hasn’t Inflicted More Pain on the Middle Class. Brooks calls for the President to “shift government resources from the affluent elderly to struggling young families and future growth.” But Baker notes:

Both Brooks and Will are a credit to their kind—but I’m not talking about blue blood.

The truth is that they are both excellent examples of conservative affirmative action. This is where the intelligence, knowledge, and cleverness requirements of pundits are lowered (or removed) so that shows can have a “conservative voice.” Think: S. E. Cupp on any MSNBC show.

There is also liberal anti-affirmative action. This is where Fox News finds the most useless and anemic liberal to offer fake balance. These “liberals” are normally played by moderates, but also very often conservatives. Think: Juan Williams on any Fox News program.

Let’s all be grateful for conservative affirmative action! If it weren’t for these programs, George Will might be on the street offering baseball analogies for spare change. And that’d just be sad—bow tie or no.