"It's eerie -- I read the news from the Beltway, and there's this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me."

That's from Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster who's an expert on public opinion throughout the midwest, as quoted by Ben Smith.

It really is the big story of the first weeks of the Obama administration. In Washington, it was a battle royale between the new president and an emboldened Republican minority. At times they seemed to have him on the ropes. And yet in the country at large, Obama remains super popular. And the GOP is wildly unpopular.

In fact, it even goes deeper than this. As Elana noted yesterday, the plan of the congressional GOP -- to the degree they have one -- is to faux cozy up to Obama and say that they both face a common foe in the Democratic Congress. The idea being that since "Congress" is really unpopular they can run against Congress.

But there's a very big problem with this strategy above and beyond the absurdity of the argument. "Congress" may be really unpopular. And the Democrats now control Congress. But politics is a zero sum game. At the end of the day, in almost every case, you've got to pick a Republican or a Democrat when you vote. And if you look at the numbers, congressional Democrats are pretty popular. And congressional Republicans are extremely unpopular. If you look at the number, the Dems are at about 50% or higher in most recent polls, while the GOP is down in the 30s.

The city remains wired for the GOP. Not that it's done them a great deal of good of late. But it remains a key part of understanding every part of what is happening today.

Late Update: Matt Cooper thinks I'm overstating how much DC is wired for the Republicans.

President Obama says he can understand his critics who don't think the government can administer the stimulus properly -- after all, Washington didn't set a very good example in the last few years. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Saturday Roundup.

Senate passes Stimulus Bill; Obama will sign it on Monday.

Norm Coleman's chances of overturning the election result in Minnesota just got a whole lot more remote.

Obama to task economists who missed the housing bubble with rejiggering Social Security.

'Blackwater', well-known mercenaries and perhaps war criminals, are tired of you beating them up over various instances of fraud and bad-acting. So they've come up with the ingenious plan to rename themselves with a word you can't pronounce -- Xe.

Noooooooowww, just try to give them a hard time when you can't pronounce their name!

So John McCain says that Obama needs to work on bipartisanship, which is about par for the course from McCain and for other Republicans these days. I just heard a reporter on MSNBC say that the Republicans have emerged from this battle with their reputation for fiscal discipline strengthened while Obama has had his reputation for bipartisanship tarnished.

As annoying as it is to hear this stuff, I can't say I'm losing a lot of sleep over it. Because in addition to being nonsensical on its face, I really don't think most people around the country are seeing any of this that way. The primary aim of this is to work the refs, the refs being DC political reporters, who are usually pretty easy to work. And they seem to be so in this case. But I don't think this is what most people see. I think the number of people who are into bipartisanship is greatly overstated. However, the number of people who are into it are heavily correlated with those who are politically gettable. So it's not nothing. But Obama has made repeated overtures to Republicans and included probably more of their goodies than I'd like in his bill. And he's been greeted by a phalanx of opposition, nonsense and trash talk.

It's true that many voters without strong partisan attachments want to see politicians 'get some things done' and not just get into political fights. I think what most people see here is one side of equation trying to put together a bill with big majorities, which means necessarily ones that wouldn't be his own parties wish list. The other party has used the overture exclusively as a vehicle for scoring political points and, more poetically put, being dicks.

For my part, I don't think there's any problem with having party line votes where both parties really fundamentally disagree on the policy question at hand. But to the extent that there's a question of who's making an effort to operate in a bipartisan manner, this one is really not even close. Reporters' idea that the entire 'bipartisan' enterprise is Obama's responsibility, as though Republicans, in their depleted state, actually get to dictate the content of bills -- I don't think people buy that. Which is probably why Obama's still really popular and congressional Republicans are extremely unpopular.

The embarrassingly mishandled prosecution of then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was the sort of thing you figured would be addressed as soon as the new hands took over DOJ, but today a federal district judge in DC held prosecutors in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents to the defense by a court-ordered deadline:

During Friday's hearing, Sullivan repeatedly asked three Justice Department attorneys sitting at the prosecution's table whether they had some reason not to turn over the documents. They finally acknowledged they did not, and Sullivan exploded in anger.

"That was a court order," he bellowed. "That wasn't a request. I didn't ask for them out of the kindness of your hearts. ... Isn't the Department of Justice taking court orders seriously these days?"

He said he didn't want to get "sidetracked" by deciding a sanction immediately and would deal with their punishment later. But he ordered them to produce the material by the end of the day.

"That's outrageous for the Department of Justice -- the largest law firm on the planet," he said. "That is not acceptable in this court."

Sullivan held all three attorneys sitting at the table in contempt and demanded repeatedly to know who else was involved in withholding the information. Another government attorney sitting in the back of the courtroom stood up and gave her name.

Reuters headline: "McCain says Obama needs to work on bipartisanship"

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) will now vote against the stimulus bill.

The final Senate vote is now set for 5:30 p.m. ET.

It pains me to say this. But Sen. John Cornyn doesn't seem to be too bright. Cornyn was just on MSNBC explaining that spending in a severe economic downturn doesn't make sense and should be replaced by tax cuts since individuals can spend money "more efficiently" than government. I guess he doesn't get that the whole point of a stimulus bill is that in a severe recession individuals -- acting on rationale individual economic motives -- aren't spending. And only government, as a policy decision, can spend at a high rate notwithstanding the state of the economy.

He also claimed a 3x multiplier for tax cuts, which I don't think anyone believes. But I'm more interested in his point about the relative efficiency of private vs. public sector spending since it seemed to show that he doesn't understand what a recession, let alone a severe recession (which has qualitatively different dynamics), even is.

I know there are contrary theories of how economies work. But not grappling with the high level of risk in the economy that makes businesses and people unwilling to spend ... not sure you can enter the conversation without getting that.

From TPM Reader MF ...

This is similar to a point that's already floating around, but for all the complaints in the blogosphere that President Obama wiffed the negotiations over the stimulus out of an excessive attempt to appear "bipartisan," it seems hard to deny at this point that Obama's stimulus strategy has been incredibly effective. First, he proposes the package that is more or less what he would like to see enacted. Then, House Democrats run up the tab inflating it above the original targets and pass it on a party-line vote. Finally, "responsible" moderates in the Senate, including Republicans, save the day from those partisan House Democrats by bringing the package back down to earth, which just so happens to be in the ballpark of what Obama originally proposed. Done and done. It's all political kabuki, and everyone played their part brilliantly, especially Nelson and Collins, who now get to go home and take credit for their post-partisan "fiscal responsibility." As much as I share many people's skepticism of all the "trust Obama's secret plan" rhetoric, in this case, it seems hardy to deny that the strategy he had all along has worked.

I look forward to seeing your take on the stimulus process and what this says about the dynamic we can expect enacting the rest of Obama's agenda.

For the backstory, see Greg Sargent.

Did he really hold up a dead mouse on the floor of the House? I can't tell what's in that little bag he shook around there.

Late Update: Price's flack tells Greg Sargent, "It was a toy mouse, from a pet store."

I can just see some well-scrubbed young GOP aide, new to Washington, being sent out to a pet store to find a toy mouse to use as a prop. Heady day for that kid.

Can Obama ever recover from Judd Gregg deciding not to be Commerce Secretary?

Especially since he's taken on the status of a cult hero?

In our interview on Friday, one of the questions I asked Joe Stiglitz was: if it's so obvious that all this Tarp 2/Bailout stuff is a bad idea and not going to work, why do we keep coming back to it?

Here's his answer ...

I keep hearing about this and have mentioned it here a few times in passing.

From Bloomberg ...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, under intensifying pressure from Wall Street and Congress to complete his financial-rescue plan, is being handicapped by a dearth of staff experts critical to the effort.

Geithner's strategy of forging a partnership with private investors to buy toxic assets would benefit from aides steeped in law and finance to thresh out the competing interests in the plan. Yet the administration has yet to nominate people for any of the Treasury's financial posts as the White House seeks to avoid Senate confirmation battles.

Administrations often take a while to fully staff out. But under present circumstances Treasury is really sui generis.

So Lincoln, Obama and a Commerce secretary walk into a bar ... well, at least Obama's cracking jokes about it. That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.