Obama really buttered them up in Cairo. He thanked them for everything from algebra to the pen, though he curiously failed to mention that they often throw people in prison for using it.

Sept. 14, on the ACORN scandal, in a column titled “Lefty Crooks Laugh at You”:

No wonder Charlie Rangel and so many people considered for jobs in the Obama administration didn’t pay their taxes — they know better.

Oct. 9, on the Nobel peace prize:

The committee clearly has cast itself into the dustbin of irrelevancy by making this move. People will joke about this for years.

Nov. 4, on the elections:

Obama and his political team are watching the results very carefully to see just how much power they have squandered in 12 short months. And they are considering just how imperiled their political agenda is now that skittish House Democrats have learned that Obama has no coattails unless he is in the race.

Nov. 9, on the health care vote:

[L]ike Gettysburg and the Confederacy, the vote will mark the beginning of the end for Pelosi and her doomed crew.

Despite the increased political and rhetorical emphasis on climate change under the new administration, the survey found only 60 percent of respondents are worried a “great deal” or “fair amount” about global warming, down from 66 percent last year. Forty-one percent said that the media coverage of global warming is exaggerated — a record high in more than ten years of polling:

This increase in skepticism took place across the political spectrum — and most sharply among independents — although a much higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats believe coverage to be exaggerated:

Notably, respondents under the age of 30 showed no change here, while all age ranges over 30 showed a significant increase in skepticism of global warming coverage.

Now, as Gallup points out, it may be argued that concerns about the environment tend to decline in times of extreme economic hardship. Except that the number of people who are worried about other environmental issues stayed relatively constant, while fears of global warning decreased:

Another explanation, of course, is that the media really do exaggerate reports of climate change, and as a result people have grown increasingly skeptical. But given the airtime and print space devoted to global warming deniers and cap-and-trade critics, I have trouble buying this argument.

UPDATE 3:25 PM: Turns out there’s an explanation I hadn’t considered: People are becoming more skeptical because man-made climate change is a myth, and the truth is finally getting out. That’s what Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) will tell the Senate in five minutes. From an email just sent out by his press man:

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, will deliver a lengthy speech about the public’s growing skepticism about man-made global warming fears. “These dramatic polling results are not unexpected as prominent scientists from around the world continue to speak out publicly for the first time to dissent from the Al Gore, UN IPCC and media driven man-made climate fears. In addition, a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments have further refuted the claims of man-made global warming fear activists,” Inhofe will state.

After two of President Obama’s prominent nominees withdrew from consideration because of tax concerns, Robert Gibbs took tough questions from the media at his daily press conference. And he didn’t enjoy a bit of it.

At first, he danced around the questions about the Tom Daschle scandal, even pulling a Blagojevich as he changed the subject to the recent peanut butter contamination. “I thought about it the other day when I was making a sandwich for my son,” he said, to the annoyance of the press.

But when the questions about Daschle’s vetting process continued, a visibly impatient Gibbs began shooting them down. “I’m not gonna spend a lot of time up here looking through the rear-view mirror,” he said on three separate occasions.

Finally, he began to take out his frustration on the press. When NBC’s Chuck Todd interrupted him to ask a follow-up question, Gibbs cut him off. “We need lights like the debates,” he said. “At least wait for mine to turn yellow.”

And a minute later: “You know what I’m gonna do from now on? I’m gonna have you write down your questions.”

He did provide a substantial piece of information, though, in confirming that Daschle had withdrawn from both of his prospective posts: secretary of health and human services and White House “health czar.” He also said of the Daschle debacle, “We all take responsibility. The president takes responsibility.”

All in all, not a fun day for Gibbs. Get this man a whiskey.

Obama boarded plane at 12:11 pm.

At 12:15 he came back, saying hello to the regular press he knew and meeting people on his plane for the first time.

He got some congratulations and then said the following.

“Kind of like old times but not really,” he said.
“It doesn’t have that breathless pace … just one city a day!”

Asked about future cabinet selections he pantomimed a zipped lip.

As [Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm] Emanuel came back, introducing himself as “Rahm,” Obama laughed.

“My minder here is getting nervous,” he said, snacking on a handful of nuts.

Such back-of-the-plane visits were a rare occurrence during the campaign, and indeed, once Obama assumes the presidency they will likely be again.

But as The Washington Times reported last week, Obama has thus far ran the most open transition in recent history, holding five press conferences and submitting to two sit-down network TV interviews — and Obama is scheduled to do another press conference tomorrow and a third TV interview Sunday, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Tom Brokaw.

As if all this press love wasn’t enough, as Marc Ambinder pointed out yesterday, Obama is no doubt scoring big points with his plan for a Christmas vacation in Hawaii.

White House correspondents never had it so good.

Intrigued, I called the study’s head researcher, Douglas Oxley of the University of Nebraska, to see if he agreed with this conclusion.

“In some ways [the study has] been misinterpreted,” said Oxley. He said that his study didn’t find a link between DNA and political leanings. “We could have things happen to us in the womb or later in life that could cause” physiological and ideological differences.

The study, released yesterday, tested the physiological responses of 46 participants to various threatening images, like bloody faces. It found that people who self-identified as “in favor of socially protective policies” responded much more strongly to the stimuli than people who held more liberal views on such issues as welfare, abortion, immigration, gay rights and school prayer.

The researchers concluded that people of different ideological persuasions have divergent physiological reactions, and that people with socially conservative views tend to be more shocked by potentially threatening stimuli.

“Some people have said that we’re calling conservatives ‘frightened’ or something along those lines,” Oxley said. “And we’re not. All we’re suggesting is that there’s a physiological difference between people who hold one set of political beliefs and people who hold another set of political beliefs.”

The study had its limitations — the sample size was small and all of the subjects were white Nebraskans — but it’s still a small step toward a greater understanding our ever-increasing ideological divide, even if the answer doesn’t lie in our genes.

Bob Tkacz, a freelance reporter who’s covered the legislature and seafood industry since 1990, described Palin as willing to answer a couple questions while dropping her daughter, Piper, off at the bus stop, a stone’s throw from both the governor’s mansion and Capitol building.

“She’s very accessible,” said Tkacz. “I’m not sure that’s the same as open.”

Tkacz described her style in news conference to that of a PTA meeting, adding that Palin keeps to the script at most times. Another reporter described her as often having staffers nearby during such conferences to field questions, too…

Dermot Cole, a columnist and editorial board member of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, said that Palin has met with the paper’s editors several times, but has generally avoided meetings that involve deep discussion of policy and issues.

“She is the most reluctant of all the governors we’ve had to participate,” said Cole, who’s spent three decades at the paper. Therefore, Cole added, “I think it’s unproven how she’s going to handle this intense scrutiny.”

Calderone also quotes Judith Erickson, wife of the editor-at-large of the Alaska Oil and Legislative Report, who indicates Palin is likely to deflect questions for which she is unprepared:

Judith Erickson noted that Palin is a quick study, and it’s her personal appeal that could win over the press corps-even when the questions tread into areas she’s unlikely to be well-versed in.

In Alaska, Palin wouldn’t have been asked to locate Afghanistan on a map, but now will be expected to answer more nuanced foreign-policy questions, as well as be prepared on domestic issues like the economy.

“She’s really good at the non-answer,” Judith Erickson said. “If you ask a question that she doesn’t want to answer, she just gives up a response that’s unresponsive. I have a feeling that she’ll do a lot of that.”

Of course, it may be more than a little naive to assume that Palin will spend much time talking to the press. We’ve written extensively about the lack of access the McCain campaign has given the national media recently — McCain has not held a press conference in nearly three weeks. In that time, the only questions he has answered have been in one-on-one interviews, mostly with local media.

I’ve been on the road with McCain the entire time since he announced Palin as his running mate, and I have yet to be within a couple hundred feet of her. The only time I’ve seen her face has been on television or on the Jumbo-trons at the rally in Dayton, Ohio, where McCain made the announcement. Palin also has yet to take a question from any reporter since her selection, local or national. Perhaps with good reason.

The McCain campaign is clearly uncomfortable allowing even the presumed GOP nominee — a seasoned politician who built his career and his reputation on “straight talk” with the press — to face the media. They’re probably not too keen on putting Palin out there, without a net, in front of reporters eager to test her qualifications for the nation’s second-highest office. One fumbled answer to a hardball question on, say, foreign policy — which, by the way, any other vice presidential candidate would be expected to answer — could prove devastating when played over and over on cable news channels, let alone a series of them. I expect Palin’s role in the campaign will be to appear at rallies, mostly in battleground states, and to interact with the press as little as possible — just like her running mate.