PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Speaker Pelosi unfavorables: Jan 37% June 57%.

MICHAEL SILENCE: The Wa$hington Po$t.

PIMP MY GAZPROM! “The fellas in the upper quarters of Gazprom need some serious upgrading in gangsta’ talk. They’re so out of the loop that they named a $2.5 billion joint venture with a Nigerian gas company…NIGAZ. Ouch..already Facebook groups accuse the Russian giant of racism.”

OUCH: Despite Failure of “Stimulus” to Work as Advertised, President Focuses on Regulatory Schemes, not Economic Recovery.

IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: A ‘coup’ in Honduras? Nonsense. “Don’t believe the myth. The arrest of President Zelaya represents the triumph of the rule of law.”

WHO CARES about Honduras?

WHO WOULDN’T BELIEVE CHRIS DODD? “Given Chris Dodd’s existing problems, you really have to wonder how smart it is to have him release the news of yet another could be health care plan said to cost much less than previous estimates at $610 billion over ten years. In another item below, it took the Washington Post less than 24 hours to throw water on the news and reveal even more troubling problems for the Obama administration as regards health care reform.”

JULES CRITTENDEN: Politburo Mulls Airbrushing Reagan.

DARREN HUTCHINSON: Earth to Congress: Keep Your Hands Off of College Football and Pay Attention to Real Issues!

NYT PUTS THE WAPO PAY-FOR-PLAY SCANDAL on page one.

BYRON YORK: Battle Lines Drawn in Americorps I.G. Scandal.

NEW G.O.P. AD: The Stimulus Isn’t Working. But will this dog hunt? Well, polls show Obama losing more ground on the economy, so the targeting’s good. (“Only the youngest voters support him on fiscal policy, and only barely, 52%-46%. Every other age demographic above 30 years of age has majorities now showing disapproval.”) What about the execution? Decide for yourself.

I’d say it’s a good start, but I agree with the guy who thinks that this ad is better. And was cheaper to produce, I expect.

LORI DREW VERDICT THROWN OUT: “It basically leaves it up to a website owner to determine what is a crime,” says the judge. I think that he’s right here. Lori Drew’s not an admirable person, but we shouldn’t send people to jail for being scum; we should send them to jail only when they violate clear law.

REASON TV: P.J. O’Rourke: Where was the government with Studebaker?

O’Rourke’s got a new book out, called Driving Like Crazy: Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-bending, Celebrating America the Way It’s Supposed To Be — With an Oil Well in Every Backyard, a Cadillac Escalade in Every Carport, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Mowing Our Lawn.

NICK GILLESPIE: You Know The Real Reason Why Time Mag Is Going Down the Drain? The Content!

ROGER KIMBALL: The Washington Post Pay-to-Play Scandal: Was Anyone Really Surprised?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON:

I think the standard explanation of the trashing accorded the foolish Governor Mark Sanford (who in embarrassing, and by now truly surreal fashion, confessed, and confessed, and confessed to an affair with an Argentinean girlfriend) and the tsk-tsk treatment of former Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards — who, in grotesque fashion, fathered a child with his mistress, lied about it on several occasions while he tried to gain political mileage from his ill wife, all as he concocted an alibi that his aide, not he, had really impregnated Rielle Hunter — is that Sanford suffered from the addition wage of hypocrisy.

Does that also excuse the press’s actively covering for Edwards? Because that’s what it did — it’s not just tsk-tsking here, but deliberately not reporting things that reporters knew to be true, because they didn’t want to hurt the Democrats.

POWER LINE: Administration, Lobbyist, Journalist — Who Can Tell The Difference? If there is a difference, anymore.

STIMULUS! California turns to IOUs amid budget impasse. Funny, some other states are doing better.

UPDATE: CNBC: Worst State Budget Gaps.

C.J. BURCH ON THE WAPO access-selling scandal: “When a journalist says something now don’t you have to wonder who paid him to say it and why? And until you figure that out isn’t what the journalist says suspect, whether you happen to love him or hate him or even agree with him on policy issues? Aren’t we past the point of giving the benefit of the doubt to journalists?”

Upside — maybe we can pay them to cover actual news. It’s a thought!

WATERING THE PLANTS: Town Hall Plants Take 2: Once Again… All of the Audience Members Called On By Obama Were Supporters.

JOHN NOLTE REVIEWS The Hurt Locker. “Katherine Bigelow’s direction of ‘The Hurt Locker’ is masterful and might very well place her back where she belongs, at the top of anyone’s list looking for a top-shelf action director. But that’s not enough to save the film from episodic plotting, jarring and unnecessary political statements, a troubling depiction of our troops and an even worse portrayal of the Iraqi people. This is a movie you want to like, but an unsettling after-taste lingers long after the thrill of the set-pieces fades.”

DESPERATELY SEEKING SILVER LININGS:

Have you noticed a change in the economic news over the past year or so? It’s a deliberately ambiguous question: The actual news has gotten worse, but the coverage of it has changed in tone. Today, reporters are eagerly looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. A year ago, and for a long time before that, they couldn’t wait to get into the tunnel.

What changed? Yeah, like you need to ask.

People have been joking about the “state-controlled media,” but in fact it’s worse — a real state-controlled media might be forced to maintain at least a pretense of objectivity and balance . . . .

THOUGHTS ON SNARK.

BUT THANKS FOR THE VOTES AND MONEY, SUCKERS! Obama deputy campaign manager abandons DOMA & DADT as priorities. Is this the hope and change you were waiting for?

But Chris Geidner offers reassurance to the faithful. Who’ll turn out to be right? We’ll see, but in my experience the “extremists” who distrust Obama — on both right and left — seem to have the better track record so far . . .