Obama jobs speech tops the NFL (but, then, it was only the Packers)

   

President Obama's speech Thursday on jobs to a joint session of Congress failed to outscore the TV ratings for his announcement of the killing of Osama bin Laden in May but did improve on his recent speeches on Libya and Iraq.

And his 4,102 words also outpaced the NFL kickoff that came right after them.

The speech -- which included 17 variations on a demand that Congress pass a jobs bill that hasn't been rendered into legislative text yet -- was carried live from 5-6 p.m. Pacific time on 11 channels: ABC, AZA, CBS, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, FBN, FNC and MSNBC.

Among the cable newsers, Fox News did the best.

Here are the box scores from Nielsen Co. ...

        

Broken down by cable networks, Fox News came first with close to 3.4 million (826,000 in the target Adults 25-54 demographic); CNN second, with just north of 1.8 million (645,000 in A25-54); and MSNBC third, with just over 1.6 million (430,000 in the demo).

By way of contrast, the president's first address to a joint session of Congress on....

As big jobs speech looms, 77% say Obama has nation on wrong track

It could be worse.

But not much.

With only 427 days left before Americans pass judgment on Barack Obama's presidency, nearly eight out of 10 of them say in a poll that they believe the country is seriously off on the wrong track.

That 77% is up 17 points just this year. And it's the highest since George W. Bush went back to Texas.

Here's how bad the new ABC News/Washington Post Poll is for Obama: The good news for now is that by only a 2-to-1 margin (34%-17%), respondents say the Democrat's efforts on the economy have done more harm than good.

After all, with recorded unemployment at 9.1%, no new jobs created last month and no outlook for improvement, the number could be 3-to-1. And it may well become that. No wonder Rick Perry entered the Republican race.

It's so bad that Vice President Joe Biden may want to look around for a new top of the ticket in 2012, lest he lose his job and that lucrative rent on the guest house from the Secret Service agents protecting him.

Even less-than-conservative websites like salon.com are publishing anguished articles nowadays such as "What Democrats Can Do About Obama."

The former state senator appeared Monday at a Detroit Labor Council rally.

Introducing the nation's chief executive, Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. appealed for union members to follow Obama's campaign promise to shun harsh partisanship and to reason and work together with political opponents such as the "tea party" to build a better America for everyone.

Well, no, actually Hoffa didn't do that. He said many things about the tea party. But here's the Hoffa action sentence:

"Let's take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong."

Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer said Hoffa's "inexcusable" and "inappropriate and uncivil rhetoric" amount to "a call for violence on peaceful tea party members, which include many Teamster members."

ABC News' Jake Tapper and Mary Bruce asked for White House comment. You will be shocked to learn that presidential spokesmen declined to comment on the union president's call to take out tea party people, presumably not in a social dating sense.

This comes about two weeks after Joe Biden called tea party people "terrorists" and the same day he called them "barbarians" in a Cincinnati labor speech.

The new ABC News poll also revealed that a record 62% of respondents say they disapprove of Obama's work on the economy. In a measure of intensity that analysts called "striking," nearly half the respondents (47%) said they "strongly" disapprove of Obama's performance, while barely 15% strongly approve.

Usually when Obama gets in trouble like this, the Real Good Talker does two things: He schedules a round of fundraisers to hear the paying crowds cheer ("Thank you. Thank you. Be seated.") and he announces a "major speech" to fix things up. Oh, look! He's scheduled a major speech for Thursday night to talk about a jobs plan after 961 days in office.

Since all his other jobs speeches in recent months haven't worked, maybe one more will.

You know, how Obama inherited a huge economic hole and how he knows the recovery is insufficient (or nonexistent, depending on your employment status) and how he really wants Congress to finally get off its collective duff and do something about the problem that he and Joe said was fixed two years ago. Especially those pesky Republicans who didn't control either house back then.

In Detroit Monday, a tieless Obama warned Republicans, who were not numerous in the crowd, that if the GOP didn't accept the new job and spending ideas that he hasn't detailed yet, he is going to take his case to the American people.

Judging by the steady decline in Obama's job approval all summer and his pathetic numbers in this latest poll, Republicans can only hope that the Democrat carries through on that threat.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Upper photo: President Obama at a Labor Day rally in Detroit. Credit: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images

Lower photo: Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. at the Labor Day rally. Credit: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images

She's baack! Hillary Clinton questions return to Obama White House

They've started again -- the Hillary questions.

Will the once-vanquished first lady, who's been the solid voice of administration foreign policy since Day One, challenge White House incumbent Barack Obama for the Democrats' presidential nomination a year from now in Charlotte, N.C.?

Of course, she and everyone will say no, no, no -- until the day they might say, well, actually, yes.

Or until the day the ex-state senator takes Joe Biden off the 2012 ticket and replaces the aging gaffemeister with her because Obama is in so much trouble and the party's big-money people from New York and California insist that the Harvard guy needs a woman's help. And they don't mean Oprah.

The Hillary question came up again Monday at the White House briefing. Jay Carney, with his Where's Waldo glasses, tried unsuccessfully to joke it off. Similar queries will ...

Joe Biden update: He visits China, ignites no war

Vice President Joe Biden was so phenomenally successful in driving the economic stimulus package to create a fraction of the jobs he promised and then headed several recent budget/deficit negotiations between congressional Democrats and Republicans, such that both sides now feel screwed.

As a reward, Joe was dispatched to Asia at this peak American vacation period. He just spent four days in China ostensibly to continue building a relationship with China's expected next leader, current vice president Xi Jingping.

But the real reason was to reassure Chinese leaders that their $1.2 trillion in U.S. federal debt was safe. And that it was one powerful wing of some political party other than his Democrats that caused all the trouble, which wouldn't be finally settled until Nov. 6, 2012.

Biden's pro forma reassurance, in light of Biden's famous predictions all last year of Democrats holding their large majorities in both houses of Congress, brings to mind a little-known Danish proverb, tillid, men kontrollere. (Trust, but verify.)

Joe also tried on a fresh public fashion look in China. Of course, he did not change his penchant for dark suits and dark shoes and wearing his hair up. But he donned eyeglasses that made some people think of someone else. But her name escapes us right now.

Today, JB is in Mongolia for a few hours because these vice presidential foreign junkets need three stops to look worthy and sufficiently productive to be paid by taxpayers. Monday night the Democrat will arrive in Tokyo for two days of reassuring our top northern Asia ally, as American officials must whenever they seem to pay more attention to Beijing.

But it was Biden's time in China that was key. He showed up at a Georgetown University basketball competition with a local team that included some undiplomatic confrontations. He had considerable private facetime with Xi Jingping. Like too many American officials overseas not named Jon Huntsman, Biden found himself having to apologize for not speaking Chinese.

He answered some questions from students, suggesting that Americans have ingenuity built into their DNA and that openness in government tends to make societies more stable, not less. This from the fellow who's met with the administration's head of transparency efforts and closed the meetings both times.

Biden also watched high school students play on basketball courts built by the NBA. And then the vice president himself took a half-dozen shots. He missed all but one, crediting the AFL-CIO with the lone basket and blaming the missed five on Republicans protecting their wealthy donors.

Just kidding. Although no one asked Biden, he blamed the missed shots on "jet lag."

Caused by Republicans.

Just kidding.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: Lintao Zhang / Getty Images AsiaPac (Biden in China); Getty Images (Palin).

Joe Biden update: His GOP 'terrorists' quote reaffirmed

So, did Vice President Joe Biden really liken Republican House "tea party" members to terrorists during the debt deal roughhousing, just as President Obama was publicly professing a desire for political civility?

In a way, it doesn't matter anymore, because the belief that he did has hardened like cement (see the photo above, the protester on the right, all the way out in Iowa).

In an unusual move within the fraternities of Washington journalism, Politico, which broke the original hot story, issued a reaffirmation of the piece Wednesday, apparently in response to another Washington news organization questioning Politico's sources as "dubious."

To refresh your memory, hours after Biden met behind closed doors with unhappy....

Americans downgrade Congress to historic low 13% job approval

Finally, some good news for President Obama, who just scored his own record lowest job approval.

Congress got an even lower grade -- 13% job approval with a record 84% disapproval.

Or put another way, somehow 13% of Americans still approve of Congress.

That would seem to pretty much narrow down the approvers to members' families and staff.

Imagine how bad Congress' job approval would be if it hadn't left town for another month of vacation.

Speaking of which, Obama and Joe Biden are both out of town too. Joe is in Asia. No, seriously. What harm could he do over there?

The president is taking a bus across parts of Iowa and Minnesota and Illinois this week, not for political purposes, you understand, but to explain again how America needs more jobs and creating them is still his top priority.

Gallup reported earlier this week that the Democratic chief executive's job approval had fallen to 39%, its lowest level since he took office 14 trillion seconds ago. No, it only seems that long. Obama's really been living in the White House for 938 days and he still hasn't come up with his own debt reduction plan.

More than two-out-of-three Americans believe the country is on the wrong track for some reason.

This new Gallup Poll on Congress is the first rating since members spent so many rancorous weeks concocting that budget/deficit deal that so impressed the Standard & Poor's credit agency it dropped the federal government's rating to AA+ with a negative outlook.

The previous time Gallup measured Congress' job was early July when 18% of Americans approved. Gallup has only been rating Congress for 37 years. The average approval in that time was 34%. But that number has been dropping in recent years.

Republicans were kind of thinking that with Democrats having to defend 23 of the 33 Senate seats up for election next year, the GOP had a good chance of taking control of that body after having captured the House in last fall's historic midterm turnover.

But they might want to be careful counting their gavels too soon. Americans' disapproval of Congress is a broad-based bipartisan sentiment, meaning any incumbents in either chamber could be in trouble come Nov. 6, 2012.

Independents are the most critical of Congress now, with only 9% approving and 86% disapproving. Among Democrats it's 15-83. And among Republicans it's 17-81.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Larry Downing / Reuters (Obama and Biden celebrate someone having a lower job approval than they do).

Late-night jokes: Conan uncovers a secret clause in the debt ceiling deal

As The Ticket's 70,000-plus Twitter followers here and 7,000 Facebook friends/fans here know, we regularly share our daily picks of the late-night jokes of interest, usually before broadcast each night. Feel free to pass them on to friends using the "Share" buttons above.

Letterman: OK, Obama reached a debt compromise with congressional Republicans. As I understand the details, it's the same kind of compromise Custer reached with Sitting Bull.

Leno: Did you see the District of Columbia has the nation's worst drug and alcohol abuse problems?  If you watched the Redskins a whole season, you'd need some relief too. Let's not judge.

Letterman: They say we averted economic disaster with this debt ceiling nonsense. Now we're $16 trillion in debt instead of $14 trillion. How is that not an economic disaster?

Fallon: The other day President Obama said, ‘Things will get better.’ Then he opened his eyes and blew out the candles on his birthday cake.

Fallon: Michelle Obama asked her husband’s fans to sign an e-card for his 50th birthday. That explains why Joe Biden's computer screen has magic marker all over it.

Leno: President Obama turned 50 Thursday. A year ago he was in his forties and his approval was in the fifties. This year it's the other way around.

Leno: President Obama is making a three-day bus tour across the Midwest later this month focused on jobs, mainly him keeping his.

Conan: Did you read about that man who jumped the White House fence? There was a brief chase, but the Secret Service was able to convince President Obama to return and continue his term.

Leno: Here's how bad our nation's credit rating is right now. President Obama asked China for another loan. But they won't give it to him unless his mother-in-law co-signs.

Conan: Part of the new national debt deal includes a Super Congress committee to make some very tough fiscal decisions before Thanksgiving. The Super Congress consists of six congressmen from each party, plus Wolverine.

Letterman: Good news in all this debt talk business: Now Congress can get back to doing what it is it does best--I have no idea.

Fallon: A new study says eating healthy adds $380 to your grocery costs yearly. Or as Americans put it, ‘Cool, I saved $380 this year!’

Fallon: After countless rounds of talks and numerous compromises on both sides, finally a deal! My wife will go to ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ while I will go see ‘The Smurfs.'

Conan: The congressional budget deal would raise the debt ceiling until the year 2013. The best part--it prevents another Smurfs movie until the year 2014.

Conan: Analysts say Oprah could help Obama get the white working-class female vote. And Dr. Phil can help deliver the crucial fake doctor vote.

Conan: Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was released from prison. He said he spent most of his time in prison hanging out with other Detroit mayors.

Leno: A New Jersey Dunkin' Donuts clerk was arrested for prostitution, turning  tricks in the parking lot overnight. Police were able to crack the case after only 10 years of surveillance.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: Viking / Penguin (Custer); John Shearer / Getty Images (Dr. Phil); Mark Renders / Getty Images (a Smurf).

Ticket pic of the week: You know, that statue hasn't moved the whole time I've been watching

As the Real Good Talker tried talking up a real good debt deal on the phone the other day, Vice President Joe Biden took a break from meeting with senior advisors to a) check White House security outside, b) watch the trees grow or c) ensure the Oval Office drapes were properly measured for a second term.

He also took a couple of days off this week at his Delaware waterfront home due to his busy schedule.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Pete Souza / White House

Top creditor China delivers unexpected fiscal demands to U.S. after historic credit downgrade

For months now late-night comedians have joked about China being the United States' largest creditor, more than $1.2 trillion in loans held by that country.

"Here's how bad our credit is now," Jay Leno said this week. "President Obama just asked China for another loan. But they won't give it to him unless his mother-in-law co-signs."

No more jokes now.

Following Friday's unprecedented credit downgrade of the federal government by Standard & Poor's (from AAA to AA+ with a negative outlook), China's official voice, the New China News Agency, demanded Saturday that America "learn to live within its means." And it suggested the U.S. might want to reduce its military defense spending further to make timely payments.

The agency's official commentary added:

China, the largest creditor of the world's sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets.

Merit aside, Americans are unaccustomed to such demands by other countries. Any national embarrassment or resentment could take the form of further damage to President Obama's job approval, now in the low forties, Americans' sense that the country is on the wrong track, now 66%, and on the Democrat's reelection chances on Nov. 6, 2012.

No immediate reaction from the White House in the predawn hours of Saturday.

However, in his weekly remarks released minutes ago, the president indicated he may have missed the point of weeks of budget-cutting negotiations, that "while deficit reduction has to be part of our economic strategy, it’s not the only thing we have to do."

Earlier in the week, after he signed the debt ceiling-budget cut plan, the Democrat outlined major new spending programs on infrastructure repairs and clean energy.

After a fundraising trip to Chicago this week and a pair of White House birthday parties for Obama's 50th, the president is spending the weekend at Camp David for a mini-vacation.

Vice President Joe Biden is also taking a few days off. But he is scheduled to depart on a three-nation Asian trip Aug. 16 with stops in Japan, Mongolia and China for meetings with Vice President Xi Jinping, Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao.

Perhaps not surprisingly for China, which maintains a running, if sometime unspoken military competition with the United States, the commentary suggested that the giant Asian, loan-holding nation might be right to expect even further major reductions in U.S. defense spending to help pay off its existing debts to China.

The article warned:

If no substantial cuts were made to the U.S. gigantic military expenditure and bloated social welfare costs, the downgrade would prove to be only a prelude to more devastating credit rating cuts, which will further roil the global financial markets.

Let's see if the volatile topic of reducing American military might to suit its Chinese creditors erupts during Thursday's Republican debate in Iowa, in advance of next Saturday's Ames Straw Poll.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

No debt necessary to follow The Ticket via Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or click this: @latimestot. Our Facebook Like page is over here. We're also available on Kindle.Use the ReTweet buttons above to share any item with family and friends.

Photo: David Gray / Reuters (Obama greets Chinese Premier Wen Jibao, 2009); Charles Dharapak / Associated Press (Obama poses on China's Great Wall, Nov. 2009).

Dow Jones plunges 512 points; but don't worry, President Obama's birthday parties unaffected

Uh, what in the world is going on here?

That humongous hard-fought debt ceiling deal that was supposed to settle things down in D.C. financially and politically seems to be doing precisely the opposite there and now around the world. And all within 48 hours.

Europe isn't buying the deal.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged almost 513 points today, erasing all of its gains this year, as fears grew of yet another recession before most people believed the first one was over. This White House returned to SOP immediately anyway. And George W. Bush is nowhere in sight to blame for this one.

Could Texas Rep. Ron Paul be right again?  He said: "You don’t get out of the problem of having too much debt by allowing Congress to spend a lot more."

Former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, who served on Obama's deficit commission, explained the financial battering of the U.S. as similar to crises in Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Spain and Italy.

"It is a global, global economy," he said to Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel. "It is so different from anything we have ever had in our whole history, and all of these countries have this trajectory of deficit and interest which is unconscionable and unsustainable."

Here's what the world was witnessing as it hoped to see this country start controlling its craving for fiscal cheeseburgers and fries for every meal:

Obama was so pleased with the bipartisan deal to control spending and cut the nation's $14.3 trillion national debt that he signed it in private. Within hours he was talking about spending much more on bridges, roads, clean energy and unemployment extensions.

Despite his sagging poll numbers, Obama then resumed fundraising for his reelection. He flew to Chicago for a $35,800-per-plate dinner that raised millions. He gave a 22-minute oration that still blamed what's-his-face the Texas guy from nearly three years ago, did not contain the word retrenchment and was widely applauded by Windy City fans.

Dick Durbin, another Illinois Democrat and the Senate's No. 2 ruling leader, said he's not giving up the fight for new taxes for government to spend. He wants on the new super Congress panel.

Vice President Joe Biden was out of public sight back at his Delaware home for a couple of days.

Obama's Press Secretary Jay Carney was pummeled today with questions on exactly what the president was doing to stop rising unemployment, restore consumer confidence and take control of what appears a chaotic Washington scene. Here's his reply;

"He is working very closely with his senior economic advisers to come up with new proposals to help advance growth and job creation."

Which, actually, is what many people thought the president had been doing all along during these 926 days of his presidency. To little economic effect, so far.

Carney also said Obama has planned several trips to talk with Americans about things. Sites include northern Virginia, the Midwest for a three-day bus tour and Michigan next week to talk about clean energy again.

The stock market plunge, however, was not expected to affect the White House's next pair of parties, a staff gathering this afternoon and another this evening with more friends and family to celebrate the aging Obama's well-documented birth a half-century ago today.

To help mark the happy occasion Michelle Obama sent out an email to millions of her husband's supporters. She didn't directly ask for money or mention the nation's ongoing financial troubles. She asked instead for people to sign an e-book of birthday wishes that the campaign is compiling, which will require leaving contact information.

"Every day," she said, "I see Barack make choices he knows will affect every American family. That's no small task for anyone -- and more proof that he's earning every last one of those gray hairs."

Just what every hubby wants to hear.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: Mario Tama / Getty Images (New York Stock Exchange traders react to the market's plunge on President Obama's birthday, Aug. 4); Jim Young / Reuters (happy Obama at his first 50th birthday in Chicago); Win McNamee / Getty Images (Obama's birthday celebrated with a party hat at Madame Tussaud's wax museum).