Why does Congress rank so high?

In the Navy, this falls into the category of being “lower than whale sh*t.” While Congress is one point higher than last year, they still rank below insurance salespeople and HMO managers, and even below lawyers, bankers and stockbrokers.

From President Obama’s perspective, it certainly does give him a reasonably good position of strength for negotiations with the GOP. Obama’s approval rating is considerably higher than Congress’. This should give him the power to win the day, but will it, and will he take full advantage of it?

On the other hand, if Congress decides to keep playing the losing hand that they have, maybe they will drop below car salespeople in the next poll. With Gallup’s poll record being what it is, Congress may actually already be in last place and we just need Nate Silver to generate the real numbers.

A new Gallup poll finds that only 10 percent of Americans rank the honesty and ethical standards of members of Congress as high or very high, while 54 percent give Congress low or very low marks for honesty and ethics. That puts those elected officials right down there with car dealers: Only 8 percent of those polled gave car salespeople high marks for honest and ethical standards in the poll released Monday.

There’s a lot at stake for the American middle class and relying on the supposed wisdom of one of the least like

d groups in the country sounds risky and it is risky. Congress is so obviously in the pocket of one of the other groups that’s low on the list, business CEOs. Whether CEOs should be ranked above Congress is a debate better left for another day.

Whether or not Obama will hold firm in the negotiations is another issue and from four years of history – including positive movement in the last year or so – I remain cautious with believing in his ability to negotiate. Until I see him negotiate and close the deal, I’m not buying into this popular new theory of Obama as a good negotiator. It’s a nice thought and would like to hope it’s real, but seeing is believing.