HOWARD FINEMAN: Obama’s poll weakness means big Kagan fight.

President Barack Obama is much less popular than he was when Sotomayor was nominated.

In May 2009, his job-approval rating stood at 66 percent in the Gallup Poll. Now, it’s barely cresting 50 percent. He never had much GOP support, and now he’s now lost most independent backing, which is one reason why Republicans are likely to make major gains in the midterms.

Indeed.

ALAN MOLLOHAN: Gone, but not missed.

JAMES TARANTO ON FLORIDA:

You’ve got to love this. Here we have a black Democrat running against a Hispanic Republican, Marco Rubio–and Charlie Crist, a guy who’s so Caucasian even his hair is white, is the hero of the liberal media and may even become the de facto Democrat in the race. Oh, and his failure to win the Republican nomination is supposed to prove that the GOP isn’t inclusive enough!

Heh.

RON BAILEY ON THE IMPACT OF A MALE CONTRACEPTIVE PILL.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “I haven’t generated great interest in the Elena Kagan nomination. She’s a liberal, which is not exactly an unexpected feature in a candidate nominated by a Democratic president. Maybe she’s gay, but since I couldn’t tell you which of the other eight justices are married, or to whom, I can’t say I find this very interesting. She has no track record, the better to dodge uncomfortable questions. She’s a bit of a hypocrite. Out of this stuff, great blogging is not made. But I do think that David Brooks is onto something when he notes that her relentless careerism, her pitch-perfect blandness, are a little creepy. . . . What’s disturbing is that this is what our nomination process now selects for: someone who appears to be in favor of nothing except self-advancement. Then we complain when the most passionate advocates for ideas are the lunatic fringe.”

A TEA PARTY VICTORY? “While driving and listening to WFMD, he heard about the stunning victory of one Brett Bidle, a freshman at Frederick Community College, the newly elected mayor of Myersville, MD. Brett said on the radio that he had never been involved in politics except through the Tea Party movement.”

LAWRENCE LESSIG: Don’t call me a liar, Greenwald.

DAVID KIRKHAM OF THE UTAH TEA PARTY EMAILS: “The Utah County Republican Chair, who is a big supporter of the Utah Tea Party, had his lawn vandalized over the Convention weekend. Someone burned ‘ASSHOLE’ into his lawn. We all showed up to dig it out this morning. Like I said, I never thought I’d get this involved in politics.”

HEH: “One of the great things about Media Matters for America, the George Soros-funded leftist ‘watchdog’ site, is that it appears to be made up of a series of interchangeable humorless drudges and scolds. I suppose that if your job was to spend all day monitoring Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh Show you’d be a humorless drudge and scold, too.”

THE LEFT’S billion-dollar Tea Party lie.

RELIGION OF PEACE: Raging Muslim Students Screaming “Allahu Akbar” Assault Swedish Artist During Free Speech Lecture (Video). Dumb hicks.

UPDATE: Zombie has more.

DON SURBER: Mollohan is out. He will not be missed.

UPDATE: Reader Todd Hester writes: “Where’s the media outcry, Glenn? Surely a political party ousting an established representative is a sign of narrowing into a yawping tribe of extremist philistines, no?”

CHANGE: “Early retirement is no longer the goal of most workers. Even retirement at age 65 now seems unattainable to many people. The majority of Americans now expect to work until age 65 or later.”

CHINA: Making its move in the U.S. auto market?

SHOWDOWN: Handheld mixer vs. stand mixer.

MISSING IN ACTION: Maurice Hinchey: “Not long ago, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) felt comfortable enough in his re-election prospects to float nutty conspiracy theories about George Bush allowing Osama bin Laden to go free in order to justify the war in Iraq, accuse Karl Rove of planting the Rathergate memos, and to demand the nationalization of the American oil industry. Suddenly, though, Hinchey has become quite shy less than six months after his Bush-Osama paranoia-fest. Now when George Phillips, the only Republican running for the nomination to challenge Hinchey in NY-22’s midterm Congressional election, criticizes Hinchey for his positions on Iran, immigration, and health care, Hinchey is nowhere to be found.”

KITTENS ON A SLIDE.

SOMEHOW I MISSED IT LAST WEEK, but there was another defeat for Canada’s “human rights” kangaroo courts.

MEDIAITE: Is Andrew Sullivan Kicking Off A Media Frenzy Over Kagan’s Sexuality?

MOE LANE ON the Maine GOP platform.

I PREDICT SUCCESS! Trump Aims to, Um, Revive Interest in Miss USA Pageant.

NANOTECHNOLOGY AND LIFE EXTENSION: Challenge and response.

THE WAR ON AIDS: Falling apart? “Too few people, particularly in Africa, are using the ‘ABC’ approach pioneered here in Uganda: abstain, be faithful, use condoms.”

ESQUIRE: OBAMA’S KATRINA? Why Obama Must Stop Blogging & Start Leading on the Gulf.

REGARDING MY EARLIER SPACE SALVAGE POST, reader Ed Clark writes: “I can’t believe you didn’t go for this.” Even Homer nods.