Republican wonder kid Jonathan Krohn, the politics of education, and columnist Christopher Hitchens talks about the "special" relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain.
Obama Admin Defends Pick for Ambassador to Iraq From GOP Critics
ABC News' Kirit Radia Reports: The Obama administration is standing by its man. Yesterday GOP senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Sam Brownback issued statements opposing Ambassador Christopher Hill's nomination to be the next US ambassador to Iraq. McCain and...
Obama's approval sagging? Pollsters say
by Mark Silva
Dough Schoen ran polls for Bill Clinton, So when he says President Barack Obama has a problem, the White House may want to listen.
Schoen says so today, in an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal penned with Scott Rasmussen, pollster-president of Rasmussen Reports and a surveyor whose numbers tend to not favor Democrats.
"Obama's poll numbers are falling to Earth,'' they report.
The argument they make is that, while the president's approval ratings are high -- above 60 percent in the Gallup Poll and 56 percent in Rasmussen's polling -- see what we meant? -- they are not as high as George W. Bush's ratings were at this stage of his young presidency, and they are sliding.
They point to a "net approval rating'' -- the difference between the numbers of people who strongly approve of the job that Obama is doing and the numbers who strongly disapprove. That gap has narrowed to 6 percentage points -- "his lowest rating to date,'' the two write in the Journal today.
The overall Rasmussen rating on Obama stands at 56 percent approval and 43 percent disapproval. The results of the daily Gallup Poll tracking of Obama's approval rating stand today at 62 percent approval and 27 percent disapproval.
Quite a difference, on the disapproval side. As we noted.
But there is "a substantial degree of polarization'' in the numbers, they say, which points to a certain concern for the Obama camp. And, while people approve of the new president personally, they are not necessarily as supportive of the steps he is taking to cure the economic problem that the nation is confronting, they note.
So, what does this mean?
Obama suggests he's not too concerned about daily tracking polls -- he even has compared the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a daily tracking number which, if one follows too closely, will lead to bad decisions. But Schoen and Rasmussen, for their part, suggest the divergent and sliding numbers could augur trouble for the White House.
Justice Dept. Drops 'Enemy Combatant' Stance
In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term "enemy combatant" to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The Obama administration says the military's authority over detainees comes from Congress and international laws of war — not from a president's wartime power.
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