If I were Obama, it's not the 44 percent approval rating that would keep me up at night. It's the 29 percent approval rating among independents that would worry me. The Marist poll shows Democrats and Republicans seeing things from a very different perspective: 81 percent of Democrats approve of the president's job performance, 80 percent of Republicans disapprove. If you wonder why the Dems and the GOP can't work together on Capitol Hill, think about how discordant the views of garden variety Democrats and Republicans are. Hope and change can get you elected. But if you can't deliver hope and change while governing, the electorate may hope for change next time around.

Patrick Kennedy has labeled the man who now sits in the senate seat his father held for 47 years a "joke." Does not that designation fit the eight-term Congressman better than it does Scott Brown? Read my piece @ the American Spectator and discover why Rhode Islanders don't find the joke of sending a mentally-ill recovering drug addict to Congress very funny anymore.

The Super Bowl was a great game from start to finish. Sean Payton's decision to go for an onside kick to start the second half makes you wonder why more coaches don't make that gamble. The Colts offense is hard to stop whichever side of the fifty yard line they begin their drive on. What happens at the bottom of the pile stays at the bottom of the pile. The game catapults Drew Brees into a marquee quarterback and Sean Payton into a marquee coach. The onside kick, the 2-point conversion challenge, and even, ultimately, the 4th-and-goal decision worked out (albeit not initially). Overlooked was how the Saints largely transformed Reggie Wayne into the invisible man. The 2-to-1 passing plays-to-rushing plays ratio shows you how this NFL is from the NFL of even a decade ago. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of a Gary Brackett or Jonathan Vilma hit. A Pick Six may be the most exciting play in all of sports. The commercials largely lacked imagination. But the casting was superb. If you watched close enough, you saw Abe Vigoda, Muno, and the Chocolate Rain guy. Thankfully, Danica Patrick's roles weren't restricted to cameos. The Who rocked the Halftime Show. I liked Daltrey's altered vocals on Baba O'Riley and Townshend going "over" on the windill power chord over-under. Finally, Wayne Sash wins the Super Bowl pool not only by correctly picking the Saints and the Under, but by nailing the 48-point total. Congratulations Wayne, and my condolences to your bookie.

The First Amenment explicitly protects "speech." Nevertheless, suceeding generations of judges have loosely interpreted "speech" to cover such non-speaking activities as dirty pictures and nude dancing. Contrast this expansive definition of speech with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's waiving of a 25-year-old man's conviction of sending sexually obscene text messages to a 13-year-old girl. The court ruled late yesterday afternoon--when most of the news media had left the office for the weekend--that because Massachusetts law specifically outlaws handwritten notes to minors, but doesn't explicitly mention text messages, the man's texts, which included his declaration that he'd like to teach the 13-year-old (really an undercover cop) how to perform a sex act, weren't covered by existing anti-perv laws.

One sure bet for the Super Bowl? The Who will play Baba O'Riley at halftime. Can't wait until the band takes the field Sunday? Check out my Who top-ten list that I now find questionable and conventional, my monster-post tribute to the Who that still holds up, and the Wholiday established by yours truly that is certain to become as big as Christmas. Here's my favorite halftime show. Hopefully, The Who measures up. What does it say about the state of pop culture that the NFL taps a rock group 35 years past its prime to headline its halftime show?

Ted Kennedy waited several years before delivering a speech on the senate floor. Kennedy's replacememt, Paul Kirk, will give his "farewell" speech to the senate today despite sitting in the august body for less than six months. What's the over/under on the number of senators present in the chamber to hear Senator Nobody's farewell address? Later today, after much delay, Scott Brown will be sworn in to the senate seat once held by Lodges and Kennedys. If a Republican sitting in John F. Kennedy's senate seat is too much for some Democrats to take, there is the added sting of Brown inheriting Ted Kennedy's office in the Russell Building. The Massachusetts secretary of state, who has delayed Brown's certification, has taken the unusual step of sniping at Brown in a partisan manner as he has finally given his imprimatur to Brown's victory. "I'd like to call on Senator Brown now to respect the rights of the majority," Bill Galvin proclaimed. "I hope that we will be able to see an up or down vote on all the nominations of President Obama and that the rights of the majority that are being respected here will be respected by the United States Senate and Senator Brown." The secretary of state might want to heed his own advice. He certified Nikki Tsongas's victory two days after she won a special election. He dithered for more than two weeks, and would have held it up even further if not for the public uproar, after Brown's special election triumph. Galvin's disregard for the "rights of the majority" of Bay Staters was not without consequence. With Paul Kirk's vote, and Brown blocked from taking the senate seat Massachusetts voters awarded him, Democrats were able to raise the debt ceiling by almost $2 trillion dollars.

Of the many missteps of the Obama administration, the one that they surprisingly haven't gotten called out on the carpet for is the decision to raise income tax rates. This may have something to do with the fact that Obama was open about this as a candidate--and he did get elected, after all. This may also have something to do with semantics. You see, Democrats aren't raising taxes. They're just letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Employing such slippery verbiage, apparently, allows the Democrats to say they didn't raise taxes without feeling as though they told a lie. So, in 2011, the top rates will move from 35 to 40 percent and taxes on capital gains and dividends will spike from 15 to 20 percent. When an economic downturn--I know GDP is up but jobs are still down--has subtracted from an economy, tax increases make things worse by subtracting even more. That's bad policy. Ask George H.W. Bush, Franklin Roosevelt, or Herbert Hoover how raising taxes during a downturn worked out for them.

Chicagoland readers! I will be speaking at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois on February 9th on the topic of the American Left. The lecture will be held in Munroe 114-116 at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public. That means come out and hear me talk. The sponsors of the event are Young America's Foundation and the DePaul College Republicans.

The Super Bowl is five days away, which means another FlynnFiles Super Bowl Pool. Here's how it works. Pick the team that you think will beat the spread. So, to cover the Colts need to win by at least five and the Saints can lose by five or less. Then pick whether you think the point total will go over 56.5 points or under 56.5 points. Then, as the tiebreaker, pick what you think the point total will be. Make your picks in the comments section. Here are mine:

New Orleans Saints -5
Over 56.5
Point Total: 61

Make your picks below and I will announce the winner in a special Super Bowl post on Monday.

Free James O'Keefe, Stan Dai, Joe Basel, and Robert Flanagan. The bailed-out quartet face a federal trial in New Orleans for the crime of being hilarious. Should the prosecution need evidence buttressing their case, here are Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and Exhibit C showing that these guys have a good sense of humor. Can I get a witness?

The New York Times ignored James O'Keefe when he exposed ACORN's shady operations for all the world to see. But when O'Keefe got nabbed for a videotaped prank in Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office, he is suddenly frontpage news. All the news that fits they print. All that clashes with their Manhattanite worldview they carefully excise.

In its attempt to paint O'Keefe and company as dangerous right-wingers, the Times actually succeeds in making them folk heroes. Of particular interest is my friend and old Leadership Institute colleague Ben Wetmore. "And then there was Ben Wetmore, 28, who was not arrested but who allowed Mr. Dai, Mr. O'Keefe and Mr. Basel to stay at his house in New Orleans this month," the Times points out. "The authorities have not indicated that Mr. Wetmore, a Loyola law student, was connected to the incident at Ms. Landrieu's office, but he has nonetheless played a vital role in Mr. O'Keefe's career, as well as that of Mr. Basel and other activists." In the Times' narrative, Ben is the puppeteer manipulating the strings behind the scenes. But he is front and center in several of O'Keefe's videos. No account of successful conservative activism in the adversary press is complete unless there is the suggestion of conspiracies and cabals.

O'Keefe describes Wetmore as a "genius"--a tag I never associated with Ben until a few lines later in the Times story, when I read this: "Mr. O'Keefe declined several interview requests, and Mr. Wetmore responded to an e-mail message by sending photographs of Jayson Blair, a reporter for The New York Times who resigned after admitting to plagiarism and fabrication." That goes down as the most clever "no comment" in history.

Though O'Keefe declined participation in the Times story, he is not shrinking from the media assault. "It has been amazing to witness the journalistic malpractice committed by many of the organizations covering this story," O'Keefe explained on Big Government.com. "MSNBC falsely claimed that I violated a non-existent 'gag order.' The Associated Press incorrectly reported that I 'broke in' to an office which is open to the public. The Washington Post has now had to print corrections in two stories on me."

Is holding a campus affirmative-action bakesale, with pricing based on the customer's race, an indictable offense? Does it break the law to satirically petition Bostonians--all too ready to fall for the joke--on whether they would like to adopt a Gitmo detainee? What's the sentencing guidelines for getting a Planned Parenthood employee to accept a donation to specifically fund abortions for black babies? Liberals haven't been able to sic the law on O'Keefe and company for these hilarious stunts, which is why there is so much pent-up energy on the Left to paint him as a 21st-Century E. Howard Hunt because of his latest caper aimed at highlighting Senator Landrieu's avoidance of the phonecalls of constituents angry over her support of ObamaCare.

If your name is Abbie Hoffman or Michael Moore, the media proclaims you a lovable gadfly. If you are James O'Keefe, you are a Watergate burglar reincarnate.

Nowhere does the reality fall so far short of the hope regarding Barack Obama's presidency than on the deficit. "And we are now looking at a deficit of well over half a trillion dollars," candidate Obama complained. "So one of the things that I think we have to recognize is pursuing the same kinds of policies that we pursued over the last eight years is not going to bring down the deficit. And, frankly, Sen. McCain voted for four out of five of President Bush's budgets. We've got to take this in a new direction, that's what I propose as president." The direction he proposed and the direction he pursues point in the opposite direction. To put Obama's proposed $1.6 trillion deficit in perspective, it is as large as the entire budget under Bill Clinton in 1998. This deficit constitutes 11 percent of the U.S. economy. The overall debt will eclipse the GDP in this calendar year. President Obama's much touted "spending freeze," which boasts saving a whole $20 billion next year, amounts to roughly 1/80th of the deficit. The operation requires a chainsaw and the surgeon is using a nail file.

In 2004, Democrats nearly put John Edwards a heartbeat away from the presidency. In 2004 and 2008, millions of Democrats voted to nominate Edwards for president. Two years later, a former Edwards aide alleges possession of a sex tape involving the former North Carolina senator and Edwards himself has finally admitted that he lied when he denied paternity of a child mothered by a woman with whom he denied carrying on an affair (as his wife endured terminal cancer). Republicans saw in Edwards a sleazy ambulance-chasing lawyer. Democrats saw a future president.

"The Catcher in the Rye" is an alright book. That J.D. Salinger's classic didn't speak to me the way it did to so many others problaby had to do with the fact that I read it in a public high school. I couldn't identify with Holden Caulfield, a prep-school castaway who despises his parents and sees a phony in everyone he meets. Rich kids can afford to hate their parents. In the public schools, where "The Catcher in the Rye" is primarily taught, Holden Caulfield is as real as James's Giant Peach.

The denizens of prep schools grow up to become literary critics and architects of curricula, which helps explain the staying power of "The Catcher in the Rye." It didn't speak to me, but clearly it spoke to someone. The book has sold more than 60,000,000 copies.

"The Catcher in the Rye" is probably better read as a cultural artifact than a novel. It prefaced important postwar trends. In its teen angst and alienation, "The Catcher in the Rye" set the template for the '50s youth rebellion of "Blackboard Jungle" and "Rebel Without a Cause" and the '60s "turn on, tune in, drop out" ethos.

It is that ethos that its author ultimately bought into. We talk about J.D. Salinger primarily because J.D. Salinger did not want us to talk about him. Just as part of his fame stemmed from the fact that he ran from fame, his refusal to publish anything for the last 45 years of his life amplified interest in what stories or novels might lay hidden in his safe. Death is a great career move for rock stars. Disappearance works for writers.

Salinger was a man against his times. We live in an age when people release naked videotapes of themselves to get famous, when celebrity hounds crash White House dinner parties and stage elaborate child-death hoaxes for the want of a reality television show, and when exhibitionists detail the most mundane matters of their life in internet "tweets." Salinger rejected all that, and as a result readers are ironically as interested in his biography as they are in his books.

Eric Hoffer once told Eric Sevareid, "Fame means to be known by people who don't know you." Meeting strangers who believe themselves to be your friend can be a pretty jarring experience. One senses that J.D. Salinger saw things that way. That one of his fans, toting a gun and a copy of his most famous book, shot down John Lennon confirms Salinger's aversion to celebrity.

A healthy reaction to the glare of the public spotlight is to exit stage right. What's truly anti-social is the rush toward gossip columnists and paparazzi. That the former is rare and the latter common confuses us into mistaking the anti-social for the social and the social for the anti-social. There is also something typically parochial about the response of cosmopolitans to Salinger migrating from East 57th Street, Manhattan to Cornish, New Hampshire. What kind of a madman trades in cockroaches, congestion, and crime for covered bridges and country living?

Shunning fame and shunning people are not the same thing. According to the New York Times, Salinger participated in town meetings, shopped at the local supermarket, occasionally attended parties, frequented the library, and regularly shelled out $12 to eat at the Congregationalist Church's roast beef dinners. In other words, though Salinger may have been an eccentric on numerous levels, he interacted with his neighbors the way most Americans do and shied away from interacting with strangers the way most prestigious authors are compelled to do. That such a life struck so many scholars and scribes as alien and unusual says more about them than it does about the author of "The Catcher in the Rye." Howard Hughes with a typewriter J.D. Salinger clearly wasn't.

Former Boston University professor Howard Zinn, famous for authoring "A People's History of the United States," died of a heart attack yesterday in Santa Monica, California. Zinn, of course, was one of the "intellectual morons" discussed in my book of the same title. Zinn wrote about America with a critical eye. I used the same approach to write about Zinn.

The president made a speech of Castroian length last night. To his right sat a man paid to make approving nods practiced in advance. To his left sat a woman paid to clap on cue and glare at those who didn't. The mood was one of a wake rather than a pep rally. From a man accustomed to hysteria, the forced enthusiasm of his partisans, and occasional laughter from his detractors, must have been a bitter pill to swallow. Nobody fainted, nobody shouted "You lie!," and everybody was bored.

The state of the union was a delusional address aimed at wishing away the disastrous year one of the Obama Administration. "We all hated the bank bailout," said a man who voted for it in the senate and administered it as president. "Let me repeat: we cut taxes," announced a politician who oversaw the increase in the top marginal rate from 35 to 40 percent. "It begins with our economy," explained the primary booster of a socialistic health care scheme that sacrificed all other priorities, including the economy, to the Moby Dick of the Captain Ahabs of the American Left. The stimulus bill "helped save jobs," insisted its creator who has presided over the loss of millions of jobs.

Mouthing Democratic boilerplate on "green jobs" was perhaps the grandest hallucination in the delusional sermon. "The nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy," President Obama said with a straight face. The fact that the president called for "passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America" was a tacit admission of the unprofitability of "green jobs." Sound businesses do not need government subsidies to turn a profit.

"We still need health insurance reform," but since the president needs health insurance reform to go away, he neglected to mention this until 9:43 p.m. EDT. Obama declared: "I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people." This from a man who wasted a year of his life pushing, and pushing, and pushing this bad medicine on an unwilling patient. Mr. President, take this as a compliment: it wasn't the messenger, it was the message.

Interspersed with passive-aggressive blame classlessly heaped upon his unnamed predecessor, the 44th president gave lip-service to placating the changing mood in the electorate. He expressed willingness to drill for oil and open new nuclear power plants. He supported a repeal of capital gains taxes on small business owners. And he pushed a freeze on government spending--to start next year and to exempt the vast majority of government spending (defense, social security, medicare, etc.).

The speech's Rosetta Stone phrase: Americans "don't understand why.... Washington has been unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems." For Ronald Reagan, government was the problem; for Barack Obama, government is the solution. The message of Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts was clearly lost on the president. Caution: Iceberg ahead!