Half-asleep, you feel strangely aware of something eerie in the bedroom. Upon opening your eyes, there he stands: a lime-green, oozing extraterrestrial.
Ray-gun in hand he stands, insistent that you must make your way onto his mothership for a parade of probes and prodding. If you’re in the group of Americans that wouldn’t rule out the possibility of an alien kidnapping, you might not exactly be in the vast majority. You would, however, make up a proportion of US residents larger than those who think Congress knows what the hell they’re doing right now.A new Gallup poll published by the Washington Post today reveals that only 6 percent of Americans have “a great deal” of confidence in the current US Congress; another 6 percent say that they have “quite a lot” of confidence.That leaves 88 percent of America asking Capitol Hill, “Well, uh, are you sure about that?”Not only do statistics from the new poll put American confidence in Congress below that of big business, HMOs, banks, mainstream media and the police, but when compared to a 1997 CNN poll, it would seem as if fewer Americans today are confident in Congress than they are convinced that alien life forms have abducted humans.The Post goes on to list a few other hot topics that Americans are more into than Congress. Compared to a 2002 poll conducted by John Hopkins University, it is safe to say that more Americans are approving of human cloning than they are the clowning around on Capitol Hill.The Post and ABC News conducted another poll recently that, when published last month, revealed that 80 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the US government, the highest level of hatred directed at lawmakers in nearly 20 years. Also apparent in that poll, to no surprise, is that President Obama’s approval rating wasn’t all so hot either. This week’s poll shows that, while more Americans are confident in Barack than they are the banks, they have more faith in the military and organized religion that the commander in chief.