Filler: What's with Congress' 14% approval?

Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

About 82 percent of people are saying they disapprove of the job Congress is doing these days, which is supposed to be a big shocking number. We normally reserve disapproval ratings much higher than that for brain cancer, starvation, drought, plummeting to the ground from high places and the killing of our firstborn by the Angel of Death.

But it's far from surprising that Congress would now be logging its highest disapproval rating in the history of polls about disapproval toward Congress. What's very difficult to understand is how only 82 percent of Americans are angry at our federal legislators. We could understand it if, say, the poll showed the remaining 18 percent of the responses came from people who are not English speakers, don't know the meaning of the word "approval," or could not be heard due to their hopeless weeping and the sounds of hungry children moaning in the background.

But it turns out that 14 percent of Americans polled by CNN actively approve of the job Congress is doing, with about 4 percent unsure.

I want names. I want addresses. I want to dig into these people's brains and see what makes them tick (I'm assuming their brains actually tick, rather than process thoughts).

In fact, I'm a little surprised that pollsters, confronted with citizens who believe everything's going just swimmingly in Washington, didn't take the initiative and dig a little deeper. If I'd been doing those interviews, they would have gone something like this:

"Wow, so you approve of the job Congress is doing? Super, super, just a few more questions. How long have you been a spy for a nation plotting the overthrow of the United States and the death of all its citizens, and what does something like that pay? You're not? Really? Are you by any chance under the impression that 'Congress' is the name of a new boy band fronted by Justin Bieber, rather than a governmental entity overseeing the business of our nation? You aren't? You're sure? And you're not from Bizarro World? OK, one last question. CAN YOU WAKE UP FOR ME, DUDE? SERIOUSLY?

"Our nation's credit rating just got downgraded like we're hoarders ordering too many salad spinners and galoshes from the Home Shopping Network, the stock market is sucking like an Oreck 8000, and the only thing keeping unemployment under 20 percent is the fact that we don't consider people who quit looking for a job after a few years unemployed. Apparently 'suicidally depressed' is now an actual occupation. How can you think Congress is doing a good job?"

But we must ask ourselves if there are any good reasons people might approve of the work our guys and gals in Washington have been turning out.

Perhaps some of the 14 percent are incurably optimistic and happy citizens, certain everything will work out just fine. Such people do exist, and it's important to seek them out these days: They are the most enjoyable ones to stand next to when waiting in line to apply for welfare, turn in bags of bottles found by the roadside for the deposits, get free health care at a county clinic, or join 1,000 fellow citizens in applying for the three advertised openings at the Gas'N'Go.

But the more likely reality is that the 14 percent are people who hate President Barack Obama so much that they blame him for everything: gravity, aging, the high fat content of really good cheese. Obama, whose "overdone spaghetti" leadership style is compounding Congress' flaws, deserves the nation's unanimous anger, too, yet he has a 46 percent approval rating.

Either there's something else named "Obama" out there people approve of, or they are really cutting this guy some slack.