My boss will be pleased.
Nsenga Burton at The Root yesterday (Tuesday, 31 August) wrote a quick post about Newsweek's latest poll (which Sam Stein of the Huffington Post also cited yesterday) with this header: "POLL: Majority of GOP Believes Obama Wants Worldwide Islamic Law."
The poll was released Monday, but Newsweek's story was posted on their website yesterday; interestingly enough, while both the Huffington Post and The Root went with the monumental, bull-headed stupidity angle for their headlines, Newsweek, somewhat surprisingly, was a bit more conservative with its headers ("NEWSWEEK Poll: Democrats May Not Be Headed for Midterm Bloodbath; Obama's approval continues to slide, but Bush's legacy still haunts the GOP") and lede:
"As Democrats prepare for considerable losses in the November elections, there’s reason to believe the party in power may not be headed for the bloodbath it might expect. According to a new NEWSWEEK Poll, President Obama’s approval rating-47 percent-indicates that the party is better off this year than Republicans were in 2006, when the GOP lost 30 House seats, and than the Democrats were in 1994, when they lost 52 House seats.
"Obama’s approval has fallen 1 percentage point since the last NEWSWEEK survey in June, but the White House has gained ground on several specific issues, specifically his handling of the economy, which has risen to 40 percent (from 38 percent) over the past two months. Voters also generally approve of Obama’s response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, which Obama is expected to address next week from the Oval Office."
Newsweek doesn't bring up the "Obama as crypto-Islamofascist" angle until the sixth paragraph, the penultimate paragraph of the post, excluding the paragraph about the poll's methodology. This is interesting, given that, as Sam Stein points out, Newsweek "devoted seven of its 24 questions to Muslim-themed topics."
Yeah, yeah, I know: all polls are flawed; how (or if...) you ask a question skews your results; everybody fudges, if not out-and-out lies, when answering polls, for various and sundry reasons; and the respondents were asked to self-identify as Democrats or Republicans. And let us not forget that hoary chestnut, "He who excuses himself, accuses himself," which is the most charitable reason I can come up with for why so many people apparently refuse to believe Obama's many and repeated professions of his Christian faith.
But. I think it's fair to say that the poll indicates a disturbing (and accelerating..?) trend in the zeitgeist, one that has affected most Democratic presidents since FDR: the far-right wingnuts of the U.S. ascribe all sorts of dastardly and dire motives to a Democratic president while ignoring the actual conspiracies swirling around a Republican White House (Watergate, CREEP, Iran-Contra, the 2000 presidential selection, etc.). Sure, the John Birchers didn't like Ike (or, come to that, Nixon's secret mission to China, or the SALT treaty with the Soviet Union), never mind JFK; but, for the most part, Democratic presidents have served as lighting rods for the far right far more than Republican presidents have.
This does nothing to allay my fears that yet another "lone gunman" may very well try to assassinate Obama.
To which -- well, see my subject header.
The poll was released Monday, but Newsweek's story was posted on their website yesterday; interestingly enough, while both the Huffington Post and The Root went with the monumental, bull-headed stupidity angle for their headlines, Newsweek, somewhat surprisingly, was a bit more conservative with its headers ("NEWSWEEK Poll: Democrats May Not Be Headed for Midterm Bloodbath; Obama's approval continues to slide, but Bush's legacy still haunts the GOP") and lede:
"As Democrats prepare for considerable losses in the November elections, there’s reason to believe the party in power may not be headed for the bloodbath it might expect. According to a new NEWSWEEK Poll, President Obama’s approval rating-47 percent-indicates that the party is better off this year than Republicans were in 2006, when the GOP lost 30 House seats, and than the Democrats were in 1994, when they lost 52 House seats.
"Obama’s approval has fallen 1 percentage point since the last NEWSWEEK survey in June, but the White House has gained ground on several specific issues, specifically his handling of the economy, which has risen to 40 percent (from 38 percent) over the past two months. Voters also generally approve of Obama’s response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, which Obama is expected to address next week from the Oval Office."
Newsweek doesn't bring up the "Obama as crypto-Islamofascist" angle until the sixth paragraph, the penultimate paragraph of the post, excluding the paragraph about the poll's methodology. This is interesting, given that, as Sam Stein points out, Newsweek "devoted seven of its 24 questions to Muslim-themed topics."
Yeah, yeah, I know: all polls are flawed; how (or if...) you ask a question skews your results; everybody fudges, if not out-and-out lies, when answering polls, for various and sundry reasons; and the respondents were asked to self-identify as Democrats or Republicans. And let us not forget that hoary chestnut, "He who excuses himself, accuses himself," which is the most charitable reason I can come up with for why so many people apparently refuse to believe Obama's many and repeated professions of his Christian faith.
But. I think it's fair to say that the poll indicates a disturbing (and accelerating..?) trend in the zeitgeist, one that has affected most Democratic presidents since FDR: the far-right wingnuts of the U.S. ascribe all sorts of dastardly and dire motives to a Democratic president while ignoring the actual conspiracies swirling around a Republican White House (Watergate, CREEP, Iran-Contra, the 2000 presidential selection, etc.). Sure, the John Birchers didn't like Ike (or, come to that, Nixon's secret mission to China, or the SALT treaty with the Soviet Union), never mind JFK; but, for the most part, Democratic presidents have served as lighting rods for the far right far more than Republican presidents have.
This does nothing to allay my fears that yet another "lone gunman" may very well try to assassinate Obama.
To which -- well, see my subject header.