little more than a year away from the next presidential election, and with a trio of Republican contenders searching for signs of weakness, the president received more bad news when his approval rating among adult male Obamas hit an all-time low.

Poll experts, and not the fun kind who strip, say this revelation comes at a crucial time for the president, who has not even officially accepted his party's nomination for re-election yet. With his self-approval showing startlingly low numbers, it leaves a second term for President Obama in doubt.

The latest statistical information comes from a CNN poll on how well the president was addressing the nation's problems. Among all voters, regardless of age, gender, race, political leanings, and being the president or not, Obama continued to a challenging 46% approval rating; but among the important demographic of Barack Obamas, a key vote to win in 2012, Obama's once-solid 98% approval rating dipped drastically, all the way to 71%.

"Oh, brother, sometimes I don't think you know what you're doing at all," the president could be heard saying under his breath as he filled out the poll.

While overall Obama approval ratings remained steady among under-14 Obamas and adult female Obamas, holding at a steady 99% and 65%, respectively, the plunge in presidential self-approval is a number that needs significant gains if Obama hopes to get his own vote during the next election. There have yet to be any strong Democratic contenders to oppose the president, but with numbers consistently declining as the nation struggles to avoid further unemployment and the threat of a deeper recession, there is always a chance a third-party candidate or moderate Republican could steal the Obama vote away from the president.

Speaking candidly off the record, a private source within the president told reporters, "I don't know about this guy anymore. In 2008 everything looked so good, and I had a lot of hopes he could deliver on all those promises he made. Christ, it's almost the end of 2011 and what have we gotten for all our hard work? At some point it can't be Bush's fault anymore, and the president has to step up and be his own man, claim responsibility for the state of things. Where did our health care go? I thought we were going to protect Social Security and benefits? Is he caving on everything in his platform or can he just not stand up to the opposition?"

Added the confidential Obama source, "I don't know about this jobs bill thing either. Kind of looks like throwing good money after bad. I thought it might work last week, then I saw those poll numbers… damn, maybe I'm just kidding myself."

Our poll expert Jimmy Cusper, and no, I won't stop saying "poll expert," notes that a dip in the approval rating doesn't spell the end for the Obama campaign. There's more than enough time to make up those numbers in the next 13 months before the election.

"As they say in Washington, as goes the president, so goes the nation. Right now Obama's having a tough time of it, and you can't blame him—he talks a good game about what he's going to do to turn things around for the economy, improve social programs and reduce the budget, but when it comes time to put up or shut-up, it seems like he's getting nothing done. To him, at least. But it's time to stop playing nice guy, to put the focus on the Republicans and their lack of answers, to call their bluffs, and to really push some big agendas through in D.C. to make up for all the lackluster business of the past three years. It's hard, but not impossible. He just has to go to work and show himself he's not just talking out of his presidential ass."

Some good news for the president is that presidential self-approval ratings typically get a boost in late December and around New Year's, when family gatherings and a few days off from being leader of the free world help improve the way things look. Obama also suffered an uncommon fall in his self-approval rating this year when he turned 50 last month.

"You've got to look at things from the perspective of your average President Obama," Cusper suggested. "He just turned fifty years old and what does he have to show for himself? A dead-end job where none of his party supports him and the news would rather cover Sarah Palin's farts. By the way, did you see that coverage? Sounds like a duck with an accent. It might not be a landslide for Obama next year, but if he keeps pushing and does his best work, reminds himself why he won the people's hearts in the first place, he just may capture his self-demographic next year. He also stands to receive his biggest boost yet in numbers around the time of the Democratic Convention of 2012. All those balloons and people holding signs with your picture on it can't help but make you feel better."

They're still frightening numbers for the president in comparison to recent history. Even when his presidential approval rating hit an all-time low of 32% among voters, predecessor President George W. Bush's self-approval record never dropped below its standard 110% rating. Of course, a lot of those were taken right after naptime, about 3:15 p.m.

ollowing the September special election of Republican Bob Turner to fill the Congressional seat disgraced by Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, newspaper headline writers are entering into a devastating period of depression as they face the prospect of never again writing a Weiner-centric news headline.

Rep. Weiner, a U.S. Congressman with a strong Democratic record since 1998, was the subject of a scandal in May 2011 for sending women illicit pictures of his namesake via Twitter. The accusation proved disastrous for the New York Representative and Democratic Party, and a windfall for bored and humorless newspaper publishers who were thrilled to be writing about naughty bits at long last. Boldface text announcing "Weiner Hanging Out on Twitter" and "Weiner Exposed Online" besieged the sleepy culture of America, increasing newspaper sales for people who found it funnier to read than just listen to a description of the disappointing sex scandal on CNN.

A little more than a week after the incident, the Congressman admitted to emailing links to women he was interested in polling, and by the end of June, the 9th District Representative resigned his seat. Headlines continued to roll, tongues firmly in cheek among the newspaper industry, proclaiming, "Weiner Loses Standing," "Weiner Ejected From Seat," and the timeless classic "Weiner Suddenly Pulls Out." Bad times for the sexually mischievous Congressman, great times for headline writers; although the news cut short some of the fun of the journalism industry, they were still guaranteed months of fun as a special election seemed some months off to fill the vacated position.

A confidential source from the New York Daily News, whose name simply isn’t as funny as Tony Weiner, remembered the past four months as if they were last year.

"As a copy editor whose only functions are to proofread stories and write headlines, let me just state for the record you’re lucky if you get big news story in your lifetime—think about it. A big-time politician exposing himself on the internet? That it in itself is gold. But the guy is named Weiner. Jesus H. Christ, that’s better than Cox. You gotta savor it," said the anonymous dude. "Even after he resigned we spent days writing headlines about him, just because dammit, we earned the right. I think we left three serial killings without coverage while we came up with ’Who Will Replace Weiner’? That was my favorite. Man, we’ll never get those days back."

This reporter reminded the confidential informant of the now classic, "No One Big Enough to Fill Weiner’s Slot," then we laughed ourselves stupid.

The halcyon days of headline writing seemed to fade as the date of the special election approached, and dull-as-dishwater Republican Bob Turner defeated the even-less-spectacularly-named Assemblyman David Weprin. The Republican election not only means a big GOP win in a district they haven’t held since 1923, but a promise that future Weiner-related headlines will only seem a desperate play for attention by print tabloids and newspapers.

At the New York Post, there was a somber feeling in the air on election night, and boos went around as a Republican victory was announced. All eyes were misty, and the feeling was best exemplified by copy editor Dawn Draper.

"Gentlemen… that’s our last Weiner." Half-hearted chuckles were all that met the dour atmosphere.

Draper spoke further on the subject as deadline approached, the staff rushing about us like mad men.

"Of course we’ll miss the chance to make Weiner-related headlines, and not just because it sold more papers," Draper said. "We at the Post have been doing Weiner write-ups before anyone else. I myself am responsible for our coverage of the firing of his Chief of Staff in 2006, which spawned the immortal headlines ’Weiner Loses Head of Staff’ and ’Behind Weiner’s Big Sack.’ But it’s never going to be enough for us again to write more Weiner coverage, to give the full skinny on Weiner—sorry, hard to stop doing that. For a while, it was a perfect storm of scandal and ’you’ve got to be shitting me’ names—everyone was game, we were all on board. Oh, the nights we sat here, giggling like school girls over Chinese take-out and writing up new Weiner coverage. We’ll never have that again."

Despite the morbid pessimism of some, others in the industry hold out some hope for the future. The New York Times, famous for its conservative coverage of news and events, has already announced their support for a fresh batch of congressional candidates in 2012, among them 8th District contender Penny Dick, 12th District candidate Patrick Dong, and 2nd District dark horse Mike Dixon-Kuntz.

Greetings, communistas! Apologies for the long gap in writing, things have been moving too fast and furious here at commune headquarters to allow much time for reflection. I just realized the other day that I’ve been wearing the same pair of socks for three days, and trust me, I have showered in that time. So hopefully that adequately reflects the level of hubbub going on around here lately.

No update from the last four months would be complete without mentioning the Gnarlap. Sometime around week 11 it became clear there was some kind of mythical beast living in the crawl space underneath my mother’s house. Not the basement, mind you, but the crawl space beneath the basement. Don’t ask me why we have a crawl space under our basement, faithful commune reader, I’m not a damned architect, and the police have already pursued that line of questioning to its fruitless conclusion. Just rest assured that it is there, and there is some kind of troll-like monster living in there and making a lot of noise and generating some kind of awful smell that Griswald Dreck is convinced is unmistakably the stench of a Gnarlap web. Raoul Dunkin was skeptical of this until the day he came home and found that the Gnarlap had eaten all of his Chicken in a Biskits, at which point he was convinced, and enraged.

As you might imagine, an exterminator was called, and as you might also imagine, if you’re particularly imaginative or an especial fan of the mid-1980’s series Amazing Stories, after the exterminator disappeared into the crawl space he was never heard from again. Ivan Nacutchacokov suggested that the exterminator just took my "imaginary creature removal" money and laughed his way to the bank, but I attribute that skepticism entirely to Ivan’s irrational hatred of the Vietnamese. It was obvious to everyone else that the poor man was eaten by the Gnarlap.

And if you thought running an internationally unknown news outlet out of your mother’s basement on a budget that’s not even enough to buy shoe strings was tough, just imagine trying to pull off that miracle while there’s some kind of horrible damned monster living under your house and eating people and snacks willy-nilly as it sees fit, not to mention stinking up the joint like Andre the Giant’s jock strap. It has been trying, to say the least. I’m tempted to apologize to our readership for the slow pace of recent updates, however none of that would be necessary if the Gnarlap hadn’t eaten two entire issues worth of content I had printed neatly inside the long-forgotten Hello Kitty notebook I found among my sister’s old things in the basement. If anyone already knew that Gnarlaps find spiral-bound representations of Japanime kittens delicious, they neglected to post this factoid on the internet.

I’m also inclined to beg the pardon of our long-suffering readership for the complete lack of Griswald Dreck output since Mr. Dreck rejoined our winning team, but somebody has to guard the crawlspace hole while the rest of us sleep, and we theorize that Dreck’s long stories about who invented cotton candy are the only thing lulling the Gnarlap into a non-commune-eating stupor.

But enough about that! On with the updates: As you’ve probably noticed, we have a new reporter on our staff, the aptly-named R.J. Handsomelots, who is indeed lots of handsome. In case you’re worried, don’t be, it’s not gay at all to say that. He really is that good looking. I met Mr. Handsomelots while buying gas at one of our insanely-overpriced local gas marts, and the fact that he knew how to write in cursive was all it took to convince me that he had what it takes to continue the fine commune tradition of excellence in journalism for no pay whatsoever.

I also figured out where the hell Red Bagel was getting those Book Revolt entries from, at long last. Turns out if you send a money order for $5 to a post office box in Bulgaria, Bulgarian wordsmiths will write you a book about whatever the hell you want in six days or less. God bless Bulgaria.

So, as you can see, we’re bravely plugging away here at the commune, bloodied but not humbled, afraid to go in the basement at night but not afraid to bring you the finest in American uber-journalism on a wildly unpredictable schedule. It will take more than a Gnarlap to stop us, commune readers. Unless the Gnarlap eats the entire staff while we sleep. Actually that would probably stop us pretty effectively.

Oh, shit, yeah, I also tracked down Rok Finger and Orson Welch. So there’s that.

Zincerely,
Emil Zender

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