"Looks good walking out of the water"

"Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent committee members this month a holiday music CD that included Barack the Magic Negro, a parody song first aired in 2007 by talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Created by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin, the song puts new lyrics to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon, and it is performed as if black activist Al Sharpton were singing it. Limbaugh played it after the Los Angeles Times ran an opinion piece with the same title. .." ... Washington Post ...

Tim Egan, writing in the New York Times, bemoans the Limbaugh-Hannity team's determination to bring down the new president -- at any cost.  But now the latest "most admired" list may be giving the rightwing yak machine a problem.

"Another big win for President-elect Barack Obama: He dethroned President George W. Bush as the nation's most-admired man this year in spectacular fashion.

"Obama was named most admired living man by 32 percent of Americans, a figure that Gallup poll analyst Lydia Saad called 'extraordinarily high' The USA Today/Gallup poll was conducted Dec. 12-14 and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

"Bush topped the most admired man list in 2007 with a 10 percent showing, his seventh straight year on top. He reached as high as 39 percent shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This month, however, he sank to 5 percent to finish a distant second to his successor.

"The number was the latest in a series. Bush's Gallup job approval rating was 29 percent, and a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey taken Dec. 19-21 and released Friday put the figure at 27 percent. Seventy-five percent said they're glad that Bush is leaving."

These are more than just "he's cute" or "I'd like to have a beer with him" numbers.

"Obama's showing is hardly surprising: Gallup found that 75 percent approve of his handling of the transition.

"'Not only does he walk on water, but he even looks good walking out of the water,' said Tobe Berkovitz, the associate dean of Boston University's College of Communication."