2009.04.30
Obama in the basement? The Washington Times gets it wrong
In a Tuesday editorial, the conservative Washington Times made the case that Barack Obama's approval ratings at 100 days are the second worst of any president in recent history:
According to Gallup's April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama's current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises.
As the attached chart shows, five presidents rated higher than Mr. Obama after 100 days in office. Ronald Reagan topped the charts in April 1981 with 67 percent approval. Following the Gipper, in order of popularity, were: Jimmy Carter with 63 percent in 1977; George W. Bush with 62 percent in 2001; Richard Nixon with 61 percent in 1969; and George H.W. Bush with 58 percent in 1989.
There's one problem with that analysis: It is completely unsupported by the facts.
Obama's 63 percent average approval rating over his first 100 days puts him comfortably in the middle of presidents since Eisenhower. Clinton had the lowest at 55 percent. Kennedy had the highest at 74 percent. Of the nine presidents since Eisenhower, only three had a higher first-quarter approval rating than Obama. The weekly average for this week put Obama at a 65 percent approval rating. As one of our blog commenters suggested when someone quoted this editorial, perhaps the Times got the numbers transposed.
Rather than paint a picture of Obama as the "second-least popular president in 40 years" as the Times suggests, Gallup instead found, "The new president's approval rating at the 100-day mark is notable in that nearly all major demographic categories of Americans are pleased with his job performance, as evidenced by approval ratings above the majority level."
As Emily Litella might say, "Never mind."
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I just have to ask: how did Clinton try to 'force' homosexuals on the military? Maybe I'm missing something, but weren't there homosexuals serving in the armed forces before Clinton? What did Bill try to do, have a Rainbow Regiment supplement the 82nd Airborne? That just does not make sense to me. I know the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' thing was a nightmare, but what I'd love to know what on earth the editorial writer for the Washington Times was meaning by that.
Comment by Other John — April 30, 2009 @ 11:05 am
I think you may be confusing the words "after" and "average." As the quote from the WT states lowest after 100 days and your comments are all about averages. Let's compare apples to apples if you want to paint a picture...
Comment by Danny — April 30, 2009 @ 11:12 am
Even the devil can quote scripture to suit his purpose!
Comment by John R — April 30, 2009 @ 11:12 am
And he often does!
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 30, 2009 @ 11:17 am
Danny,
The Washington Times editorial writers are the ones who are confused. Obama's approval rating after 100 days is 65 percent, not 56 percent. The entire premise of the editorial is based on a falsehood.
Comment by Dan Radmacher — April 30, 2009 @ 11:17 am
It's interesting to see the RT defending the President after 8 years of attacking him.
Comment by Henry — April 30, 2009 @ 11:22 am
Sounds like a transpose of numbers to me (56/65). But, do polls really mean all that much? His term is 4 years isn't it? I don't think polls much matter until re-election time comes, good or bad approval ratings.
Comment by BobH — April 30, 2009 @ 11:31 am
Henry: "It's interesting to see the RT defending the President after 8 years of attacking him."
Is it as interesting to see The Washington Times attacking the president after eight years of defending him?
And is it really a defense of Obama to point out that The Times screwed up the facts in its editorial attacking him?
Comment by Dan Radmacher — April 30, 2009 @ 11:41 am
You know, I think I would love to see the editorials Henry, BobH, Mary, or John R would have written defending President Bush. Did any of you who constantly have bemoaned the "attacks" from the RTEB on your President from the comfort of anonymity, ever write a LTE or Commentary defending your President from the unfair, scurrilous, vicious "attack" perpetrated by the RTEB? Just curious, no need to offer names or dates, just wondering.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 30, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
Really? Did you not see the WT attacking Bush over open borders? I sure did.
I just found it interesting that you are a pro-president newspaper now. I don't recall you defending the president from media attacks in the past.
Comment by Henry — April 30, 2009 @ 12:54 pm
"I don't recall you defending the president from media attacks in the past."
Henry, is it possible that in the past, the media was using accurate information?
Comment by allen bunch — April 30, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
"Henry, is it possible that in the past, the media was using accurate information?"
All of them? I seriously doubt that. Dan Rather would still be the anchor of CBS if that were true.
Comment by Henry — April 30, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
I thought this was a Blog on the polls about BHO and Sandi you are looking at Bush again. Give it up. He's gone. I didn't defend Bush in this Blog.
Comment by BobH — April 30, 2009 @ 3:47 pm
Duly noted BobH #13. Apologies, for my misinterpretation. You cannot discuss politics and leave Bush out of it, gone but not forgotten, just like Clinton, Reagan and Nixon still get in. Good luck keeping a thread on topic.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 30, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
Apparently Gallup only poled ACORN employees and Rev.J.Wright church goers.After 100 days can anyone tell me what Dan's president has accomplished to BETTER America???
Comment by Mike S. — April 30, 2009 @ 7:03 pm
Mike S..... other than attempting to balance the budget with cabinet appointees?
Comment by BUD — April 30, 2009 @ 7:55 pm
It might be embarrassing but it is revenue
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 30, 2009 @ 8:42 pm
Henry, you said, "All of them? I seriously doubt that. Dan Rather would still be the anchor of CBS if that were true."
When the Washington Times erred, the RTEB brought it to our attention.
Are you saying that the RTEB did not address the problem with Dan Rather?
Am I confused again, Henry? I thought this discussion was about whether the RTEB was defending the president or defending accuracy. Maybe I am wrong but I will vote for accuracy. Here again I am probably wrong but, I would have thought that ignoring known inaccuracies would be considered biased journalism.
Comment by allen bunch — April 30, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
What sort of second-rate operation builds an entire editorial on a typographical error in some pitiful attempt to try and ding a very, very popular president? I wonder if any of the Time's "fact checkers" bothered noting the discrepancy.
I doubt there will be the same sort of hysterics from the right that we see when CNN screws something up.
Comment by Kristen — May 1, 2009 @ 7:31 am
"a very, very popular president"
who is that?
Comment by pammala — May 1, 2009 @ 9:57 am
Uh, the guy with the 65 percent approval rating.
Comment by Dan Radmacher — May 1, 2009 @ 10:03 am
Obama's the very very popular president. Pretending it's not so doesn't change anything.
Comment by Kristen — May 1, 2009 @ 10:05 am
Henry, honestly, you are trying to say that RT is apparently so bad because they're sticking up for Obama?? In this thread it is plain and clear that all they are doing is point out the TRUE FACTS...as opposed to what the Washington Times did. But if the RT truly wanted to please you Henry they could just report false facts I suppose.
Comment by HCS — May 1, 2009 @ 10:08 am
Apparently, the error didn't originate with the Washington Times, it originated with a blog entry by Judith Apter Klinghoffer on George Mason University's History News Network blog. Klinghoffer's error wasn't transposition, from what I can see, but she does appear to be mixing apples and oranges.
Pollsters determine presidential approval in several ways. The simplest is simply to ask, "Do you approve of President Barack Obama's performance?" Another way is to ask what kind of job respondents think the president is doing, and give them five options from Poor to Excellent.
Klinghoffer looked at a Gallup poll that took the latter route, then added up the 23 percent and 33 percent of those who thought Obama was doing Excellent or Good respectively and called that a presidential approval rating of 56 percent (ignoring the 23 percent who thought Obama was doing "just ok").
I can't tell where she got the figures for the other presidents to compare Obama to, and she doesn't cite her sources. I don't know, then, if she's comparing Obama's performance on a 5-point scale to similar poll questions asked about other presidents, but there's reason to doubt that. The one link she does give to corroborate the number of a past president, George W. Bush, pollsters asked a simple question: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"
Based on that question, as I noted before, Obama had a 65 percent approval rating at his 100 day mark.
Comment by Dan Radmacher — May 1, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
So, the WT wrote an editorial about Obama's approval numbers using information from a blog without verifying its accuracy before publishing it? If that's the case, then they ought to reprimand whoever authorized that along with the person who wrote it.
Comment by Other John — May 1, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
After Clinton admitted to his affair with Monica, a poll was released saying that 35% of people polled said they didn't believe the affair took place. Polls do not reflect reality. They reflect the feelings of the people paying for the poll.
I was a marketing major in college and we took a class on polls and surveys. One of the things we studied was how polls can be manipulated. We learned that surveys could not be trusted except to measure trends. Are Obama's numbers trending upward or downward within the same polling parameters?
The media tends to use polls to support their views as if they are facts. They will sometimes ignorantly say something like "65% of Americans believe that Obama is doing a good or great job" which is a blantant lie because the poll was only taken by a few people.
Comment by Henry — May 1, 2009 @ 2:33 pm
We already know that polls can be twisted to tell what you want it to Henry. This thread is about the WT writing an editorial on false numbers.
Comment by HCS — May 1, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
Approval ratings are just that..approval ratings. If you ask 1000 people what they think about the job Obama is doing, they'll tell you what they think about how Obama is doing. Whether or not it's a reflection of how he actually IS doing is a different story. But that's not the purpose of the poll.
Comment by Kristen — May 1, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
Kristen....does the same go for Bush?
Comment by Danny — May 1, 2009 @ 3:06 pm
Yes. 23% of people approved of Bush's performance.
Comment by Kristen — May 1, 2009 @ 3:11 pm
The Washington Times retracted the editorial this morning.
"In short, even if our overall figures did not compare oranges to something almost entirely different like apples, we did at least do something like comparing oranges to tangerines. But close doesn't cut it in this business. We regret the errors."
Good for them.
Comment by Dan Radmacher — May 6, 2009 @ 10:39 am