ED KOCH DISAPPOINTED IN OBAMA: “I have been a supporter of President Obama and went to Florida for him, urged Jews all over the country to vote for him saying that he would be just as good as John McCain on the security of Israel. I don’t think it’s true anymore.”

JOHN HAWKINS INTERVIEWS Jason Mattera about his new book.

CHANGE: Obama ‘Even Worse’ Than Bush On Secret Wiretapping Case, Says S.F. Lawyer. “This is Obama. Obama! Mr. Transparency! Mr. Change! It’s exactly what Bush would have done.”

CBS POLL: Obama’s Approval Rating Hits New Low. “President Obama’s overall job approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 44 percent, down five points from late March, just before the health bill’s passage in the House of Representatives. It’s down 24 points since his all-time high last April. Forty-one percent of those polled said they disapproved of the president’s performance.”

Okay, so my prediction that he’d get a popularity bounce from passing healthcare wasn’t wrong — I just had the direction backwards . . . .

GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS: Unemployment stays at 9.7%. But there’s this: “The number of unemployed rose again in March.”

GERMANS no longer worrying about global warming?

Here’s the Der Spiegel article: A Superstorm For Global Warming Research.

BLOWING THE NARRATIVE: Militia Plotter Was Anti-Bush.

“THIS IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION.”

UP FROM BONDAGE: Some sex-scandal thoughts.

GREG MANKIW: Is the U.S. undertaxed? “The bottom line: The United States is indeed a low-tax country as judged by taxes as a percentage of GDP, but as judged by taxes per person, the United States is in the middle of the pack.”

SUPERSIZING EASTER with ostrich eggs.

POLL: What’s Driving The Tea Party Movement: “Tea Party activists may be ardent supporters of economic conservatism but are similar to the overall electorate when it comes to economic priorities, according to the findings of a new report released by The Winston Group today on the political movement.”

THE INSTA-WIFE: Is Control over Porn Really about Control over Men’s Sexuality?

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN corrects Frank Rich, et al., on history. “How quickly we forget that in the editorial rooms and bar rooms of the Bush era, the vapid phrase on the lips of my liberal-minded comrades, repeated like a Maharishi mantra, was that ‘dissent is patriotic.’ Now dissent has become the first indication of incipient fascism and subterranean racism. If Rich sees in the current debate the seeds of pogrom, if Krugman sees the rhetoric of ‘eliminationism,’ forget national heath care—we need a national history lesson.”

Plus, from the comments: “Accusations of racism are a strategic tool in the arsenal of the Democratic Party. That’s how Democrats keep African-Americans in their fold.”

Also, this observation:

Accusing the tea partiers of a hidden racist agenda, essentially means that the election of Obama has set the country back.

Their hatred (from the likes of Krugman, King, Blow, and Rich) for the right is so blinding they don’t realise the import of their accusations.

If its about race (and any idiot could see that its not) then it means Obama has a miserable fail winning people over.

Yeah, not quite the post-racial utopia we were promised.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Things Are Worse At The Post Office Than I Thought.

Plus, from the comments: “Funny how all postal workers are always having a bad day. You’d think such low skill people, making so much money, would be in a more celebratory mode.” You’d think.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Rep. Phil Hare (D-IL): ‘I Don’t Worry About the Constitution.’ He also doesn’t know the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Maybe these guys should have to take a test or something before they’re seated . . . .

GENDER CONFUSION AT THE DCCC. I’ve met Dana Rohrabacher and he’s definitely not a she.

MOE LANE: *How* old is Jim Moran (D, VA-08), again?

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: The Humpty Dumpty Approach to Explaining Obamacare.

KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL: WHITE HOUSE SPAM. “We just received this Letter to the Editor submitted by a Tennessee resident. It’s deadwood spam; turf mail. Google various parts of it and you’ll get the White House Web site, AARP, the American Chronicle, Democratic Women of Clifton and my.barackobama.com. Oh, and you’ll also get marketingofcampaignemails.blogspot.com.”

ABC, CBS hit new audience lows.

TEA LEAVES: “Both Maine Senators declined the White House’s invitation to attend President Obama’s event in their home state today, according to White House spokesman Bill Burton.”

TALKLEFT: New ProgressiveSpeak: Denial On Obama’s Triangulation.

CHRIS STIREWALT: Democrats Get Hip To The Paranoid Style of Politics. “To read the news, you might assume that there is a militiaman under every rock and that every tea party is a front for the Aryan Nation. . . . It is usually those out of power who are drawn to paranoid conspiracies, but Democrats sound like a pack of John Birchers talking about a shadowy conspiracy that is plotting against them.”

Well, to be fair, this all-white militia is kinda scary. In a dweeby, self-righteous sort of way.

JACK CASHILL: How quickly spread the Tea Party smear.