Here They Go Again

One month into a president’s tenure, the norm is for him to have approval ratings just over 60% and disapproval ratings of about 16%.  Right now, Barack Obama has been president for one month and his approval rating is 63% while his disapproval rating is 24%.  In other words, the percentage of people who approve of his performance is normal while the percentage who disapprove is much higher than normal. 

 

The usually liberal L.A. Times Top of the Ticket Blog deserves a lot of credit for pointing these numbers out.  However, the blog does not appear in the actual newspaper and is not identified on the home page of the L.A. Times’ web site…which brings us to the question of how the media is covering The Exalted One now that he is in office.

 

Recently the MSM has spent a lot of time reporting Obama’s approval numbers without bothering to mention their normalcy – and without reporting his disapproval numbers at all.  To those who are not independently knowledgeable about such matters (in other words, just about everybody) this gives the false impression that abnormally large numbers of people who are “in the know” think Obama is doing the right things. 

 

Do you think the MSM has a reason for wanting people to get that impression?  Don’t insult my intelligence by saying “no.”  They got Obama to the White House by crafting a phony image of him in people’s minds, and they will do everything they can to keep that image alive because they are already thinking of 2012.

 

And on a separate note, what on earth was Sean Penn talking about at the Oscars when he said he was proud to live in a country that elected an “elegant man” for president?  There’s nothing wrong with elegance, of course, but it has absolutely nothing to do with one’s qualifications for leadership.  We don’t elect presidents to dress in the finest suits and speak mellifluously while sipping Macallan Scotch in five-star hotels.  We elect them to make tough decisions, to stand down violent enemies, and to guide the ship of state through dangerous waters.  What does elegance have to do with any of that?

And lastly, this:  During the same speech in which he got mushy about Obama being elegant, Mr. Penn went out of his way to angrily condemn people who oppose gay marriage.  He even said that their grandchildren will look back on them with shame. Makes me wonder if Mr. Penn knows that Obama has gone on recod opposing gay marriage, or if he’s giving him a pass because he’s a Democrat.