Obama’s Job Approval At 53% Despite Week Of Controversy
Last week was one of the roughest weeks of the Obama Presidency to day, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his job approval numbers:
A new poll shows a majority approving of President Obama’s job performance after a week where his administration faced a tough trio of controversies.
A CNN/ORC poll released Sunday morning shows 53 percent approve of the president, with 45 percent disapproving. Obama held a 51 percent approval in the last CNN poll conducted in early April.
“An approval rating that has not dropped and remains over 50 [percent] will probably be taken as good news by Democrats after the events of the last week,” said CNN polling director Keating Holland, announcing the poll findings.
Seventy-one percent said that the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative political groups seeking tax exempt status for higher scrutiny was unacceptable, with 26 percent finding those actions acceptable.
The IRS actions brought criticism from the White House and both parties. Obama called the actions “outrageous,” and accepted the resignation of Steven Miller, the acting director of the agency, last week.
Lawmakers have begun hearings and Republicans have vowed to discover if officials at the White House knew about the scandal, despite claims from Obama that he didn’t “know anything” until reading news reports of the matter.
The poll, though, finds support for the president, with 61 percent saying that his statements on the scandal have been accurate, with 35 percent disagreeing with his characterization of the IRS actions.
But there is also support for the GOP handling of the IRS matter, with 54 percent saying congressional Republicans are reacting appropriately and 42 percent saying they are overreacting.
Fifty-five percent believe the nation’s tax agency acted on its own, with 37 percent saying they believe the administration ordered the IRS to target Tea Party groups.
But the poll finds less support for the administration’s handling of the Benghazi Consulate attack, with 42 percent satisfied with the White House. Fifty-three percent say they are dissatisfied.
Obviously, this past week is only the beginning of a story that’s likely to be around for awhile and there may be some chipping away at the President’s reputation among the public. However, this has got to be good news for the White House right now, and perhaps notice to the GOP that they will be overplaying their hand if they try to turn their investigations in to a partisan war rather than a fact-finding mission.
Perhaps most people realize that these “controversies” are stupid, and the only people that actually care are those that already hate Obama with the fire of a thousand suns.
As opposed to the GOP who decided to waste taxpayer money to vote to repeal Obamacare for the 37th time, and doing nothing but scandalmongering the entire week.
You keep saying things like this Doug in article after article, with varying levels of accuracy in your predictions. Just because Fox News has decided to beat the drum on Benghazi, the IRS, Marines holding umbrellas or Kenyan birth certificates does not mean that these stories are “around” in the general sense of the word – that is among moderates who simply want governance rather than manufactured scandals and faux umbrage.
@JoshB:
So given that Bush’s approval rating was higher than 53% for most of his term, does that mean the controversies he was accused of were also stupid? And what’s the cutoff point at which they stupid controversies magically transform into serious controversies?
Or perhaps is it just that most people aren’t paying attention, so that public popularity is a bad way of determining whether a scandal is serious or not?
@Tony W:
It’s going to be around because there are going to be continued Congressional investigations in both the House and the Senate of the IRS matter, not to mention the FBI investigation.
I think that should be: Week Of “Controversy”
ie. it didn’t stick.
@Stormy Dragon:
The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Public awareness of scandal is not a great measure for determining the validity of scandal, and these “scandals” are not remotely going to damage Obama. The right is just flinging sh!t at Obama and hoping something sticks.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Those Lawmakers have begun hearings and Republicans have vowed to discover
ifwhen officials at the White Houseknew about the scandal,began using the IRS to target their enemies… Even if they have to manufacture the evidence themselves like they did with the Benghazi e-mails.@Doug Mataconis:
You are forgetting the lawsuits. Many supposedly being filed.
But one between the IRS and a Jewish group is set for hearings to start in July.
This is likely true. It is most likely that Obama and, the best the Democratic party have to offer are unable to competently manage the government and effectively oversee its operation. The federal government is just beyond their management abilities.
Now disturbing is, even with all the czars and plethora of political appointees, Obama is apparently unable to even learn of these activities before they are reported publicly in the news. Look the IRS lady had to plant the question so that the IRS scandal would make the news so the White House would hear about it since apparently the normal reporting channels were blocked.
@JoshB:
Whether a scandal is going to hurt Obama also isn’t a very good measure of how serious it is. The IRS scandal is serious even if it doesn’t end up reach that high in the administration (although I fear the Republicans, in there zeal to make it reach that high up are going to end up letting the people responsible get away with it).
Pretending real scandals are nothing just because your guy is in power is just as bad as trying to tie the President into everything bad that happens.
If the economy gets better and unemployment falls, these “scandals” will sink into oblivion. That’s what the public is focused on.
This is frustrating . Any objective look at Benghazi reveals that there is nothing there, but six months of hammering by Fox News and talk radio with no push back from the Administration has produced the impression that the Administration did something wrong.
The Administration’s approach to these controversies seems turtle-like-get into a defensive crouch, then hope these things blow over. IMO, they need a more aggressive media strategy. Send a take-no-bullsh#t person like Stephanie Cutter out there to do the Sunday morning shows and to point out things like the Republicans doctoring the White House emails on Benghazi. The Administration keeps thinking that the media will “take their side” in these controversies. They need to take their own side.
@Stormy Dragon:
If it doesn’t reach Obama, why should he be tainted by it? The IRS scandal is legitimate, but it’s not Obama’s doing.
@Stormy Dragon:
Frankly, I don’t think that the IRS scandal is going to end up being much. Toure has pointed out that the IRS administrator was hired by GWB.Most of the IRS employees involved date back to the Bush Administration or before. Is the theory therefore that IRS people hired by a conservative Republican President deliberately targeted conservative groups? That makes zero sense.
The Administration might have been too quick to throw the IRS under the bus, a la the Sherrod Brown “scandal”.Maybe it should have just withheld comment and gotten the facts first.
IMO, the Administration also needs a Cutter type to go out there and make these points, bluntly and without apology. The Administration media strategy needs to be less turtle, more wolf.
lol
1. The GOP can’t even tell you what the cover-up is in Benghazi and lets be honest, Americans didn’t care six months ago, while the hell would they care now?
2. What the DOJ did was legal and the “victim” was the press, whom are as popular as the banks these days.
3. The IRS scandal is a bureaucracy blunder and the IRS isn’t tied to the White House. On top of that no one cares about the Tea Party.
So…..yeah…it doesn’t surprise that Americans don’t really give a shit about this.
Of course those numbers are totally wrong. The right prefer to use poll numbers that had Mitt Romney winning!!! All these scandals are supposed to work! Why aren’t they working? That’s what Republicans are now saying. We’ve done everything we can to get this guys approval rating to drop but boys it’s not working! What can we do next? I bet Mitch McConnell has gone back into his shell seeing as he looks like a turtle. John Boehner must now be turning green so that latest tanning expericence was a waste of time. Republicans are desperate to have the American people hate President Obama as much as they do. Seeing as they live in a parallel universe they have no clue that the American people can’t stand the sight of them and their perpetual trumped on nonsense!!
@JKB:
I long for the days of Reaganite competence as they competently stuck Marines in the middle of the Lebanese civil war, then competently left them there without ammo or reasonable means of self-protection, then competently allowed 241 of those Marines to be blown apart, then competently, after making bold threats, scurried out with tail between legs.
Then Mr. Reagan compounded his competence by selling weapons to the same people who murdered those Marines — but only after sending them a lovely cake. Then Mr. Reagan competently entrusted a nutcase named Oliver North to take the money he’d earned selling weapons to terrorists and use it to support death squads in Central America.
Ah, for the good old days.
@JKB
Can you share some of the posts you made questioning the competence of the Bush administration after 3000 Americans were murdered in NYC on 9.11? A few of the posts you wrote demanding an investigation of the administration and resignations would be good as well.
Then you might be taken seriously.
I can only assume that they poll people who live in a vacuum and have no source of news or data of any type.
@Rex Crouch
No doubt the polls are rigged, just like they were before the last election 🙂
Meanwhile, back in the reality-based community, Nate Silver takes a look at Peggy Noonan’s claim that the IRS has been targeting conservative voters for audits. Guess what?:
WHOOPS!!
Zandar, over at Balloon Juice:
I can’t wait for Nate Silver and others to examine the data relating to the 501(C)4 applications. You see, that’s the difference between the 1990s and now. Darrel Issa and talk radio had the field to themselves. Now, we actually have data analysis and the Internet. So Peggy Noonan’s agitprop gets unmasked as nonsense almost before it gets out the gate.
My guess is that Issa and the Republicans are going to continue make all sorts of claims about IRS targeting of conservatives, only to have them shot down within days by Silver, Klein, Chait, and various other policy wonks. That’s really going to hamper the “scandalization” of the IRS issue.
The right really assumes that the IRS is just filled with partisan liberals who will do anything to get a conservative. But the data–at least in 2012–show that out of 100,000 or so employees, just 100 donated to Obama and 25 to Romney. To me, that means that the appearance of professional neutrality is what employees strive for.
The right is also glossing over why on earth there would be an organized political effort taken against Glenn Beck/Tea Party types. If anything, the Obama campaign would have loved to have more of these people front and center. It’s like arguing that Obama feared Michelle Bachmann so much he organized her defeat (along with Rick Perry, Cain, Santorum, and Gingrich) in order to face the only electable candidate that the GOP had.
@Doug Mataconis:
I shudder at the thought that the Benghazi Hearings might turn into a partisan Republican mission.
@JoshB:
Wow JoshB you appear to have inserted you head all the way up into the small intestine.
How about those edited talking points that blamed a video for the Benghazi attack?
Why were the witnesses to the attack in Benghazi not available for months and threatened if they talked?
Ask the Families of the Dead in Benghazi about scandal.
The IRS actually apologized for Targeting 501c applicants.
Ask the AP how they felt about having their records seized by Eric Holder’s Department of Justice.
Enjoy the View…looks like you have a lot of company up there.
@Rex Crouch:
Yes, they did poll conservatives.
They’re the ones, the 45%, who disapprove of the president for being inaugurated twice.
@1200intell:
Thank you for proving my point.
@ 1200intell
OMFG!!!! THEY CHANGED THE TALKING POINTS!!!
WORST. SCANDAL. EVER.
Oh wait, the GOP lied to make it seem much worse than it really was.
GOP trying to undermine our state dept. in a time of war – giving aid and comfort to the enemy?
You be the judge…
@1200intell: Okay, brain boy, maybe you can explain what no other Republican can: Where is the crime in the various agencies agreeing on the language for the talking points — or to use your terminology, editing them?
@Stormy Dragon:
Actually, to say that Bush’s approval rating was above 53% for “most” of his term is not even close to being a factual statement. George W. Bush’s average approval rating was below 50% for virtually his entire second term (well below by the end).
@wr…anjin-san.it’s about the cover-up sweetie’s.
@JoshB…So, where was Obama on the night of the Benghazi attack and why is it “offensive” to ask, … that according to Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer. Is Clint’s “empty chair” coming back to bite Barry? Could be. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JEHHeQuQXOw
@1200intell:
As to the AP issue, its last gasp was this morning in the Sunday morning talk shows. Apart from the press, nobody gives a damn that the DOJ wasn’t polite to AP-least of all the Republicans, who have attacked Obama for not cracking down on leakers.
As to Benghazi, the Republicans have been reduced to fabricating evidence in order to maintain the public’s interest. Our resident BENGHAZI!ist has been too embarrassed to post about the latest on Benghazi. It’s running on fumes as a scandal. The Republicans are still going to “investigate”, but the issue is going to run out of steam once the House re-election campaigns began and our representatives realize the public doesn’t care.
The House will do their best to “scandalize” the IRS matter, but will be unable to connect the matter to Obama. Failing that, its a “scandal” involving mid-level bureaucrats, most of whom are Republicans. I expect that the Democrats on the committee are consistently going to ask the following questions , “What is your party affiliation?”, and “Under whose Administration were you hired?” The Republicans won’t like the answers to those questions.
@ 1200intell
Please provide details of the “cover up”…
btw, GOP wrongdoing is open game, and it’s pretty clear they have been lying in an attempt to gain a partisan politica advantage at the expense of national security
@ 1200intell
Robert Gates, a man who’s knowledge and impartiality are not in question has addressed the Benghazi issue. You might want to pay more attention to him, and less to the blondes in short skirts on Fox.
“Last week was one of the roughest weeks of the Obama Presidency to day, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his job approval numbers:”
I would be wary of any one poll, especially from the Obama loving sychophats at CNN. This poll has Repubs at 24% – I think there are a lot more Repubs than that in the country. This 2012 election had Reps over 30%. Given how energized Repubs will be to blast ObamaCare, I think there are more than 24% Repubs around these days. This CNN poll sounds a lot like the Obama sychophants at DailyKOS/PPP and their SC poll that had the Liberal up 10 points a week or so before an election she lost to the tainted candidate Sanford by 10 points not that long ago.Yeah, PPP called that one dead on.
At any rate, Reuters had Obama Job Approval at 45%, down 8 points from a few months ago. Who is to say whether their 45% or CNN’s 53% is right???
Besides, all this is just noise – The danger for Obama is what all this noise and the implosion of the ObamaCare scam means for the 2014 elections. Obama may think he can BS his way through these scandals. The Dems who have to defend this empty suit in 2014 may have to deal with an highly energized Rep electorate like 2010.
You remember what happened during the 2010 Mid Terms don’t you?? LMAO.
@wr:
In reply to wr, who wrote:
It might not reach to a formal definition of crime, but perpetrating a hoax upon the American people in a matter of great public interest is hardly innocent.
The Administration is given information that a terrorist attack was successfully perpetrated against an American embassy, with an ambassador killed. Under international law, this is an act of war, not by Libya, but by Al Qaeda.
This gets turned into a story of a protest gone wild outside the embassy, sparked by outrage over a film made by some American, who later has his personal life ruined as consequence.
To edit is to change the language, but not the meaning, of a text. This is not editing: it is lying. After creating their package of lies, the operatives at the White House then have everyone up and down the federal Executive repeat them, so as to be consistent with one another.
Then, when they are caught in their lies, they claim — what?
They claim that this is just how things are done in Washington, which may be the only true thing they have said in years.
@ Kenny
Rocking out to your Debbie Boone records today?
Quick! Who was Earl Palmer? Don’t look it up on Google, just answer…
@Justinian
So you are outraged that a parolee who committed multiple parole violations had his parole revoked?
The “party of personal responsibility” indeed…
@anjin-san:
The operatives at the White House stirred up huge resentment against this person, causing much of the country to blame him for the attack at the embassy. It is difficult to tell whether the operatives knew he was a parole violator with a fairly long string of arrests at the time they fabricated the story about him being the cause behind the attack at the embassy.
Of this we can be fairly certain: the operatives knew they were ruining this person’s life by the story they fabricated.
Dear Republican Party,
Please proceed.
Can you find a better martyr? “This person” is a scumbag.
Latino_in_Boston wins the internets for the day…
@ Justinian
In other words, you don’t know what happened, but you are still outraged that a criminal went back to jail for violating his parole. Meanwhile, the fact that the GOP lied abou the talking point edits to smear a vital branch of our government for partisan advantage bothers you not in the least.
Got it.
Hey Justinian –
I’ve got an umbrella you can borrow, in case you need one…
@rudderpedals:
In reply to rudderpedals, who wrote:
Fine, then. If the subordinate clause
is all that you or anjin-san can think about, then delete it from the post, and read the rest.
There was a time when bearing false witness against your neighbor, even with a long arrest record, was considered a moral wrong. Obviously those times have passed.
@Smooth Jazz:
Oh lord, we’re back to unskewing the polls. Well, how about Gallup, then?
@Smooth Jazz:
Are you really going to do this PPP/SC stuff in every comment thread? I guess everyone has their schtick.
@ Justinian
Fine. Please link to your posts declaring your outrage at the GOP for it’s lies in this affair. I will stand by.
@KariQ:
Man, don’t you just love it when the wing nuts try to argue with data? It’s like a blind man trying to shoot an apple with an arrow.
@Justinian:
Is your claim that Nakoula committed no crimes, is not a convicted felon, was not on parole, and did not violate the terms of his release?
@Smooth Jazz:
Heh, I also remember what happened in November 2012. Did that go down the memory hole?
@ Justinian
Perhaps it has not occurred to you – standing as you are on lofty moral high ground – but this statement that you made is a lie.
Nakoula ruined his own life. He chose to be a criminal. He chose to violate his parole when society gave him a second chance. You are trying to blame his problems on Obama for partisan political advantage.
Run along skippy, I have things to do – no time for liars.
@Rick Almeida:
In reply to Rick Almeida, who wrote:
No. My claim is this: that the story about how the incident at Bengazi was a protest gone wild outside the embassy, sparked by outrage over a film made by some American, was a hoax perpetrated by operatives at the White House, and that perpetrating such a hoax was not an innocent activity.
@Justinian: How dare you. The man has fresh blood on his hands and you quote scripture?
@rudderpedals:
In reply to rudderpedals, who wrote:
I cannot tell whether you are being sincere or sarcastic. The commandment
does not make any distinction whether the person has blood on his hands or not.
@justinian
It’s always a beautiful thing to see a conservative stand up for the rights of criminals. Brings a tear to the eye.
2012 was devastating for Republicans. They really thought they had it in the bag with Mitt , America the Beautiful” Romney. You’d have thought with that lovely rendition of it the country would have swooned at his feet and rushed to the polls to cast their vote for America’s next pop idol. The truth is Mitt Romney was a big corporate loser and President Obama actually cared about people. The people voted in huge numbers and the president won overwhelmingly for a second term. That had Republicans pulling their hair out & they took a huge chunk out of Donald Trumps which was needed as to make some kind of sense out of that god awful style!
As it stands now Republicans think they’re onto a winner with all these so scandals & never ending investigations. They will live to regret all of it. The American people are far smarter than they’ll ever be and know exactly what the GOP game is. President Obama is getting on with what he was elected to do and that is govern. Unlike the jerks in Congress who need some more schooling as the only word they’ve ever learnt so far is NO. It will backfire on them big time come 2014. Time to kick them to the curb and get Democrats back in charge of the House so the president can get more things done for the good of the country.
@Smooth Jazz:
And remember those skewed polls partisan hack Nate Silver was touting in the run up to the 2012 election– they actually showed Obama up by nearly 5 points can you believe that?! I mean President Romney must laugh about those polls every weekend over a nice cool milk.
@Justinian: “Under international law, this is an act of war, not by Libya, but by Al Qaeda.”
Not to question your undoubtedly vast legal knowledge, but how can an act of violence by a group of thugs — call them terrorists if that gives you a stiffie — who are unaffiliated with a state be an act of war? Who is declaring war on us?
“To edit is to change the language, but not the meaning, of a text. This is not editing: it is lying”
And not to question your grasp of the English language, but may I ask from which orifice you pulled this brand new definition of the verb “to edit”? In this case, the talking points went back and forth being edited to match the view of the situation as agreed on by the various parties involved. This is what happens in any organization that must release a statement.
President Obama in his Saturday address promised to find out who is running this government and hold them responsible.
Apparently, Nate Silver has a squeaky voice. Clearly, he is not to be taken seriously.
The first harmed, well, nothing really. The second killed over 100K, cost six trillion dollars, squandered a deep well of international support we had at hand, and turned Iraq into a pro-Iran state.
We know which one outraged the right…
@Justinian:
So even now that we have the entire 100+ e-mail chain where the talking points were formulated freely accessible by the public, the RW BS about the White House inventing the protests/video line somehow persists?? How about putting in the effort to update your conspiracy theories since the e-mails definitively show it was the intel the CIA provided in those internal deliberations, not an invented, politically expedient “hoax”.
A Lot More Coming Out In IRS Scandal Soon…will it be good news or bad news…boys?
Max Baucus D-MT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yb19uDyfHAk
Anonymous Cincinnati IRS official: “Everything comes from the top.”
@1200intell:
What an exciting video you’ve linked there. Rambling Baucus, speculating & saying nothing.
A “hunch” that after they hold hearings there will be more “context” to all of it. I’m breathless with anticipation.
@Jeremy R: Time will tell?
Now it’s not PC to ask what Obama was doing during the evening of the Bengahazi attack…why is that boys?….Was he Packing for Vegas?
@Stormy Dragon:
Woe … Let me Google that for you.
Nope. You can see that Gallup shows his overall average was just 49% – and that includes the bump he got post 9/11.
Hist second term average was an abysmal 37%.
The American people get it. They see a GOP congress working 3 days a week and doing nothing to make their lives better while the Pres tries to make the economy and living conditions for all better. That was what he was re-elected to do. Americans wonder if GOP is doing all these hearings at the same time while investigations are taking place on the so-called scandals why the GOP has got things back to front. Get the results of the investigations, then have hearings and then take steps to fix what the investigations point to as solutions. Most citizens are not stupid and see the cynical actions of the GOP as just plain political and a waste of time.
The Republicanists seem to be in full Ken Starr mode…keep spending the peoples money until you find something, anything, with which to score political points.
What a pathetic group they have become.
William F. must be rolling over.
@anjin-san:
This may be a rare event, but I agree with the sentiment of anjin-san when he wrote:
Yes, I have seen the sites that showed that there is no way that a plane’s supply of jet fuel, burning, can cause a skyscraper to collapse, that the top of the towers fell, when they fell, similarly to free fall, again impossible under structural collapse, that WTC Building 9 collapsed to the ground afterward, though it supposedly suffered at most an office-paper fire, which has never happened before in all the history of office building fires (funny the things that happen to buildings containing all the records of the Enron scandal), that a side of the Pentagon was blown apart by a jetliner that left only a few parts, no actual jetliner, on the site.
Those who looked into these matters were called “Truthers” at the time, since they were concerned about this quaint notion called truth which was, to them, important. It was a term of contempt, no less derogatory a term than being a “birther” now. After all, we must all support the troops.
And the professor of physics, who opened the case, by showing that jet fuel cannot possibly heat the metal of a skyscraper anywhere near so high as to have the metal reach collapse — he did have his career ruined, and was not a convicted felon or anything. George W. Bush himself threatened to ruin the political careers of those few Republican members of Congress who dared even to consider raising serious questions about the propriety of authorizing war in Iraq, which he could do because he was, at the time, also leader of that party.
But anjin-san and I differ in this. Judging from the tenor of his posts, anjin-san has come away from these events with a deep and abiding disgust with everything Republican and conservative (although the author of the No Child Left Behind Act was certainly no conservative). I have come away with a deep distrust of what a U.S. president, supported by the powers behind his throne, can do, together with a heightened intolerance of all mendacity committed by a chief executive or by those people and powers behind him.
But I do grant: after 9/11 and its aftermath, everything else seems to pale in comparison.
@ Justinian
Did you not just give us a pious lecture about the evils of lying? Why did you misquote me to attribute something to me that I did not say?
My remarks in no way referred to, or alluded to, 9.11. They did refer, quite clearly, to the bogus WMD story, which was used to justify the Iraq war (which also had nothing to to with 9.11, except in the minds of the gullible.) There is no ambiguity abou what “the second” thing I am referring to, as there were only two hilited items in my post:
Clearly you are both a liar and a hypocrite, and I am done with you.
@anjin-san:
I must extend my apologies to anjin-san, since I did in fact conflate the assertions of the Bush Jr. administration justifying the War on Terror and the War on Iraq together. In fact, the quotation of Bush that anjin-san made sounded so much like
that I veritably confounded the two together. Bush said “we know who did it” about a day after returing to the White House after being hid in his secret bunker.
That said, it only explains my lapse; it does not excuse it, and, again, I must extend my apologies.
The story keeps changing boys, usually a sign of covering up something…..or is it just the “new” truth?
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/the-white-houses-shifting-irs-account-91638.html
Lois Lerner is going to plead the Fifth…those “Low Level” employees are just full of surprises boy’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XrRGyvoJDyU
Look at all the scandal, what if only half or a quarter of it is true?
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2013/05/scandalpalooza-update-obamas-worst-day.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+YidWithLid+%28YID+With+LID%29
I’m sure there is nothing to this….probably some technicality.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/irs-investigation-timeline-who-knew-when/