7 REASONS to date a military man.

SISSY WILLIS: An increasingly impotent chattering class of credulous Chris Matthewses.

CHANGE: Obama down to 46% in Gallup weekly poll. “Gallup’s weekly presidential approval survey shows Barack Obama sliding to the lowest level of his presidency, 46%, while his disapproval ties its highest mark, also 46%, for the third time this year. The approval rating has reached 45% once on the daily tracking polls, but this has been the lowest full-week rating of Obama’s term. The survey doesn’t include any data on issues, but clearly the response to the Gulf oil spill is dragging down job-approval numbers in a manner similar to what happened to George W. Bush and Katrina.”

Related: Gallup: GOP takes six-point lead in generic Congressional ballot.

USEFUL IDIOT: Greenwald and Gaza. “Since Glenn Greenwald is showing up on MSNBC and elsewhere, as an ‘expert’ on Israel and Gaza, this is as good a time as any to recall his record with regard to the last major Hamas-Israel blowup, the Gaza incursion in 2008-09. . . . And while we’re on the subject of Greenwald, here’s an interview with Greenwald in which he (a) claims that Israel’s boarding of a blockade-running ship violates international law because the ship was in international waters. Ruth Wedgwood, an actual expert in international law, then comes on to rebut him. . . . and (b) accuses everyone who disagrees with him about Israel’s blockade of simply regurgitating propaganda, which is amusing coming from someone who unhesitatingly repeated the following false propaganda from the ‘Free Gaza’ activists.”

IN THE MAIL: From Philip Terzian, Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century.

NO COLA, DEFICITS: Social Security Increase Unlikely Again This Year. Maybe this is why the seniors are so testy.

CENSUS WORKERS: Seniors are the cranky ones.

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama’s ‘Chicago Way’ plunders the private sector.

HOW DILBERT won the war. “There, we learn that our secret weapon against the Nazi war machine was . . . bureaucracy.” So who’s doing that to us, now?

A VICTORY IN THE WAR AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHY:

Harrisonburg’s top prosecutor and James Madison University’s student newspaper have reached a settlement under which the state will pay $10,000 in legal fees that the paper accumulated while arguing against the seizure of staff photographs documenting a riot. . . . The Washington-based attorney for The Breeze said the most important piece of the settlement between the student newspaper and Garst was her admission that a seizure of photos wasn’t the right way to go.

“I admire the commonwealth’s attorney for her willingness to stand up and say so,” said attorney Seth Berlin.

Better late than never on that realization, I guess.

JACOB SULLUM: ENABLING CORRUPTION.

In a 1996 law review article, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan warned that campaign finance laws “easily can serve as incumbent-protection devices, insulating current officeholders from challenge and criticism.” The DISCLOSE Act, a speech-squelching bill supported by the man who nominated Kagan, is a good example.

President Obama and congressional Democrats say the DISCLOSE Act, which is expected to come up for a vote soon, is aimed at ensuring transparency and preventing corruption in the wake of Citizens United v. FEC, the January decision in which the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on political speech by corporations and unions. But the bill’s onerous, lopsided requirements suggest its supporters are more interested in silencing their critics. . . . Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) said he wants people to worry about a fine or prison sentence when they dare to speak ill of him.

“I hope it chills out all—not one side, all sides!” said Capuano. “I have no problem whatsoever keeping everybody out. If I could keep all outside entities out, I would.”

Hacks don’t like criticism. But they should be careful. They’ll like tar and feathers even less, and that’s what you get when you make criticism illegal.

OBAMA’S very bad year so far. Lots of problems, and he seems unequal to all of ’em. What’s really news, though, is that the legacy media is starting to point it out.

INNOCENTS ABROAD? Klein and Yglesias in China. Will they go the full Tom Friedman?

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Obama’s Glamour Problem.

POLITICO: Rod Blagojevich trial rattles insiders. “The corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is already shaping up to be a political circus, promising to lay bare the underbelly of Chicago politics. But while the stakes are clear for Blagojevich – he could be the fourth Illinois governor in 40 years to retire to a federal prison – some of the most powerful Washington insiders are braced for potential political damage from the trial, which begins Thursday.”

GREAT CARS . . . of Egypt?

WHO TO ROOT FOR? Eliot Spitzer vs. Glenn Greenwald.

MEGAN MCARDLE: No Good Answers on Public Pensions. “There are roughly three main plans, all of them unsatisfying.”

GREG GUTFELD: Empathy For Empathy.

BIG GOVERNMENT: Undercover Census Fraud Investigation: Louisiana.

A FURTHER DEMONSTRATION of why threatening bloggers isn’t very smart.

NOW ON YOUTUBE: Politzoid’s Money For Nothing Stimulus Video Parody.

A CHANGING CLIMATE: Royal Society to Re-evaluate Position on Global Warming.

THIS EXPLAINS A LOT: AP doesn’t know the difference between ‘government’ and ‘big government’.

L.A. TIMES: Obama’s FTC plan to reinvent America’s news media.