Archive for April 28th, 2009
"USA Today" says Bush focused on Iraq war his first 100 Days
USA Today recently reported on the sharp turn in the first 100 days that Obama has made from the Bush era. Says the USA Today,
In his first 100 days in office, President Obama has not hesitated to chart a different course than his predecessor, George W. Bush. Bush focused on the Iraq war; Obama has placed more of an emphasis on Afghanistan.”
If George W. Bush was focused on the Iraq war in his first 100 days in office, it must have been a war in Iraq started by Bill Clinton. The war in Iraq Bush focused on was the one started March 20, 2003 – some two years after taking office.
Then of course, there is each president’s personal style says USA Today; Obama, “the cool African-American lawyer from Chicago, and the back-slapping white rancher from Texas.” I wonder why USA Today didn’t contrast them as them as Obama, the black community organizer and activist from the south side of Chicago, and Bush, the former governor of Texas and the only president to have earned an M.B.A.
“It’s Mars and Venus,” says Thomas Mann, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “It’s hard to find a more different contrast between the presidents.”
I don’t know…let me think about that for a moment. How about the New England patrician George H. W. Bush and the philandering hillbilly from Arkansas for contrast? How about Ronald Reagan, the “Great Communicator” versus the sniveling, whiny peanut farmer from Georgia? How’s that for contrast.
100 Days and Obama is in the Cellar
Today’s Washington Times has this to say:
President Obama’s media cheerleaders are hailing how loved he is. But at the 100-day mark of his presidency, Mr. Obama is the second-least-popular president in 40 years.
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.
It’s no surprise the liberal media aren’t anxious to point out that their darling is less popular than George W. Bush. …The explanation for Mr. Obama’s low approval is that he ran as a moderate but has governed from the far left. The fawning and self-deceiving press won’t go there.
Mr. Obama’s popularity after 100 days is the second-lowest for a simple reason: He is more partisan and divisive than his predecessors – including Richard Nixon.
