Barack Obama has failed to defeat conservatism in America By Nile Gardiner World 45 Comments Comment on this article This week’s striking Gallup poll on political ideology is further confirmation that the United States is in essence a conservative nation, which has ironically become even more conservative under Barack Obama. According to Gallup, 40 percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36 percent as moderate and 20 percent as liberal. This is the first time conservatives have outnumbered moderates in America since 2004.These are staggering figures when you consider that the Left currently dominates the Executive Branch of the US Government, both Houses of the United States Congress, the federal bureaucracy, huge swathes of local government in many big cities, academia, the public school system, and most of the establishment broadcast and print media in America. The figures show there is a huge disconnect between the American public and those who wield much of the political power in the country.Most significantly, Gallup’s 16 surveys of 5,000 adults conducted across 2009 have definitively shown that conservatism is on the rise despite the election in 2008 of the most liberal president in American history. The biggest factor pushing up conservative support has been a shift among independent voters, 35 percent of whom now describe themselves as conservative, compared to 29 percent in 2008.The Gallup survey also reveals a distinctly rightward shift in public attitudes since the Obama administration took office, with a growing backlash against the US government’s support for big government solutions to the country’s economic woes, as well as a marked rise in public support for socially conservative views.Here are several clear-cut examples of rising support for traditionally conservative positions on some of the biggest policy issues of the day, as outlined by Gallup:•Perceptions that there is too much government regulation…

  Approval Ratings for Pelosi Hit a New Low
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
  A month after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's showdown with the CIA over interrogation techniques, just 38 percent of Americans approve of her job performance, while 45 percent disapprove, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released yesterday. That's the lowest approval rating she has received in the poll. One clear trend line has emerged in the California Democrat's 2 1/2 -year reign as speaker, and that's a slow but steady rise in unpopularity. Shortly after she became the first woman to serve as House speaker, just 25 percent of voters disapproved of her, according to a Post-ABC poll in January 2007. Now, almost twice as many people disapprove of her performance. Republicans heightened their attacks on Pelosi after she charged the CIA with lying to her in a September 2002 briefing about which methods they were using against detained terrorism suspects. CIA documents appeared to show that she was fully informed that agency interrogators were using waterboarding and other harsh methods, while Pelosi countered that agency officials did not provide that information in an intentional effort to mislead her. Pelosi can take heart in the findings among self-identified moderates -- the voters who frequently decide close elections. Among that group, 43 percent approve of Pelosi's job performance, with 40 percent not approving. When those centrists' responses are broken down by party identification, a clear line emerges: Moderate Democrats overwhelmingly approve of Pelosi's performance (63 percent approval, 22 percent disapproval), while moderate Republicans have developed an outright hostility toward her (17 percent approval, 63 percent disapproval).        

 
Leaked 'Lost' episode spurs surprising fan reactionThe first hour of the final season of ABC's "Lost" has leaked online, and the reaction is not what industry insiders expected.  

   Lockerbie bomber: The SNP's Libya stunt has shamed my nation Few Scots wanted to be the toast of Tripoli for releasing Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, says Brian Wilson.   By Brian Wilson

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                            Scotland's justice secretary Kenny MacAskill 
The Scottish Nationalists have never been too fussy about the international company they keep. Indeed, the last time they were celebrated anywhere more exotic than Banff was when Alex Salmond became "the toast of Belgrade" – the late Robin Cook's phrase – for denouncing Nato action against the deeply unpleasant Serbian regime.However, the Nationalists crave to be noticed on the international stage by whatever means. And this week, they succeeded. Rarely can so many decent Scottish stomachs have turned than at the sight of the Saltire being flourished in Tripoli as a centre-piece of the repulsive celebrations to welcome home the mass murderer Megrahi, courtesy of the SNP.
For the Nationalists' own fundamentalists, however, any short-term embarrassment – though they might have under-estimated this one – is a price worth paying for the bigger prize of having acted separately and alone in a major international set-piece. They will calculate that when the finer points about the Libyan affair have been forgotten, the image of Scotland as a player in its own right will remain imprinted around the world.To a disappointing extent, they may even be right. The vast global audience for the rantings of Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Minister, could have been forgiven for assuming him to be the spokesman for a sovereign state, albeit a tinpot one with curious moral values. Certainly no politician in a German Land or US state would have been left to go it…