Feverishly Blogging

I was sick Monday and I'm feeling pretty lousy again today. So not much blogging will be done.

Unfortunately, today I have company. My daughter Tess has caught the bug one day before school starts. No way to spend the last day of summer break. Bummer.

Although feverish and fatigued, I've managed to keep up on a few things.

One day after I wrote that a string of executive branch missteps are a poison pill for his re-election hopes, Gov. Chet Culver served up an apology, of sorts, on a stick at the Iowa State Fair.

Coincidence? OK, yes. But I can dream of having influence, can't I?

He was speaking at The Register's soapbox:

"I want to say that some of that criticism is justified, and that we have made our fair share of mistakes, and I take full responsibility for those things that have happened in various state agencies that happened on my watch," Culver said, participating in The Des Moines Register's State Fair Soapbox.

Later, Culver attributed the problems in part to organizational dysfunction in his administration and noted that two of the problems involved administrators held over from his predecessor, Gov. Tom Vilsack, also a Democrat.

"What matters is I take full responsibility," Culver said. "It happened on my watch. We've learned from those mistakes. No one's to blame but me. And if people are upset or angry about that, they need to make sure that I take the brunt of the concern."

It's a start, but he has to convince voters he can do better. That's the tough part.

Also, The Iowa Republican, news for Republicans, by Republicans, released a poll Monday showing Mike Huckabee as the 2012 Iowa caucuses front-runner. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin rounded out the top four.

But frankly, the real winner is The Iowa Republican, which got all sorts of attention for its key test of early blah, blah, blah. As a predictor of future caucus performance, it's worthless. But if everybody stopped doing worthless polls, pollsters would be in soup lines. We can't have that.

Today, TIR reports that President Obama's favorability rating in Iowa is 51 percent. But, Obama is trailing 45-38 in a "generic ballot" against an unnamed Republican.

On one hand, that's bad news for Obama. On the other hand, I think generic ballot questions are just about the most useless poll questions. There is no such thing as a generic ballot. People vote for /against actual candidates. Obama will be running against a real, live Republican, and there is nothing generic about Newt, Sarah, Mitt or the Huckster.

Here in Cedar Rapids, city leaders are still hoping FEMA will change its mind and pay out millions of dollars to compensate the city for the flooded Sinclair plant site, the hydroelectric dam and the Quality Chef site.

I think the city can make a decent case that it planned to repair the dam and should get compensation. But I still don't buy the notion that the city deserves $21 million for a defunct/flooded/burned meatpacking plant that it bought for a fraction of that sum and didn't even bother to insure against flooding.

I understand that city officials believe that federal law entitles them to the money. They're doing what they think is best for the city. But I'd have a hard time ever writing again about misguided government waste if I were to endorse this money grab. Sorry. Just can't do it.

Finally, Linn County Supervisor Brent Oleson notes at his Marion Contrarian blog that Edwin Starr's "War" (What is it good for) was the No. 1 song when he was born in September 1970.

Reluctantly, I must admit that beats my Aug. 18, 1970, birthday song, Bread's "Make it with You." But If I had been born three days earlier, my song would have been "Close to You" by the Carpenters. So it could have been worse. (No offense to Carpenters fans.)

I'm late for a coughing fit. Have a fine Tuesday.