Zogby's Report Card: Obama's performance bad, but GOP's worse
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Pollster and analyst John Zogby reports in our weekly White House report card that President Obama continues to plummet in the polls, but, when compared to congressional Republicans, doesn’t look as bad.
The Presidential Plummet: Obama Approval at Slides to 43%
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By: John Zogby Forbes.com Contributor
Now playing at a theater near you: Barack Obama and the Grand Funk Railroad. In our brand new monthly Zogby Analytics Poll taken September 17-18 among 1000 likely voters, the President's job approval rating has taken a dive down to 43%, with 54% disapproving of his overall performance. What is particularly striking about this new set of numbers is the dive he has taken among key constituencies that have formed his reliable base.
Larry Summers Deserved A Congressional Hearing, And Voters Did Too
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By: John Zogby Forbes.com Contributor
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Leading federal officials were supposed to be chosen on merit, not on ideological purity or whether or not they were acceptable to special interests. Perhaps the Father of All the Founding Fathers, James Madison, hated special interests. In Federalist Papers #10, which he co-authored, he warned of the power of "factions" and how they could eventually undermine the national interest. For pretty much the same reason, he also hated political parties. The United States of America was an experiment and much too fragile to be in the throes of groups that cared less for the national community and its values.
Zogby's Report Card: Obama ducked on Syria, but U.S. avoided war
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Pollster John Zogby reports in our weekly White House report card that President Obama’s stumbling on Syria at least had the benefit of so far avoiding war.
"In the global game of dodgeball over Syria, the president ducked just in time this week. Regardless of whether or not he stumbled into this, was outmaneuvered by the cagey street fighter Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, or was boxed into a corner, the fact is that at this moment the conversation is more about negotiations over how to monitor and destroy Syria's cache of chemical weapons and not about going to war.
Zogby Report Card: Confused Obama flunks Syria 101
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"Mr. President. I have been doing a lot of thinking about your term project on Syria. When you first approached me about the topic, you said that a president of the U.S. had no good options. The U.S. cannot topple Syrian President Assad because there would be more chaos in the country and the region - like Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan (not to mention Yemen and Tunisia).
Zogby's Report Card: Abandoned by Britain, public, Obama loses Syria options
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Pollster John Zogby reports in our weekly White House report card that President Obama, deserted by the public and Britain on Syria, has lost the kind of presidential power previous presidents had in international affairs.
"Do you remember a much simpler time not so long ago when the president of the United States was the 'leader of the free world' and the 'most powerful man in the world'? That president could launch a war (by any other name) by declaring it a 'police action' or even fabricate evidence and present it to Congress (Gulf of Tonkin 1964, 'weapons of mass destruction' 2003).