The Jan. 30-Feb. 1 USA Today/Gallup poll asked Americans to say whether they approve or disapprove of seven specific actions Obama has taken as president. Americans' general support for most of these is in line with Obama's initial overall job approval ratings.
The public is most supportive of his decisions to name special envoys to oversee the administration's efforts in the Middle East, and Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to tighten rules on people working as lobbyists either before or after serving in his administration. Both of these moves are favored by 76% of Americans.
It doesn't matter so much who he picks but what he tells them to do.
I wonder if the Gallup question about ethics rules included the information that Obama feels perfectly free to waive those rules whenever he feels like it. After all if the man simply grants himself an exception to the rules any time the urge strikes him are the rules really anything but hypocritical window dressing?
Americans are nearly as supportive of Obama's actions to limit the interrogation methods that can be used on military prisoners -- actions designed to ensure the United States does not resort to torture to find out information from prisoners. Seventy-four percent of Americans favor that decision, the same percentage who favor his executive order to institute higher fuel efficiency standards.
Ask them this again five minutes after a dirty bomb goes off in Boston and they find out that someone we had in custody knew about the plan but wouldn't talk because we could no longer use techniques like waterboarding.
Same thing for the higher fuel efficiency standards. Ask them again five minutes after they learn that their husband or wife and children have all died in a car accident because they were driving a tinfoil roller skate that gets great gas millage but offers little protection in a crash.
Two in three Americans approve of his signing a bill to make it easier for workers to sue for pay discrimination, the first legislation he has signed into law as president.
Ask them this again after the company they work for goes bankrupt because they get hit with a flood of decades-old discrimination claims that they have no chance of disproving because witnesses are dead and records have been lost. This is why there is a statute of limitations in the first place. Because after a certain amount of time passes it is almost impossible to give the defendant a fair trial.
This is the problem with all left-liberalism. It can sound good when discussed in the abstract and only one side of the argument is presented but in the real world you soon find that things called consequences start rearing their ugly heads.
The public does not agree with everything Obama has done, however. For example, more Americans say they disapprove (50%) than approve (44%) of his decision to order the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorist suspects in Cuba within a year.
It's nice to know that the public hasn't gone completely crazy. Doubtless the public's unease about closing Club Gitmo has been fed by the fact that the mainstream media has screwed up and allowed the fact that most of the people we have locked up down there are the worst of the worst. The fact that many of those we have released in the past have gone right back to terrorism must have also made an impression.
Further, Obama's decision to reverse the prohibition on funding for overseas family-planning providers may be the least popular thing he has done so far. This was an executive order that forbade federal government money from going to overseas family-planning groups that provide abortions or offer abortion counseling. Fifty-eight percent of Americans disapprove of Obama's decision to lift this ban, while only 35% approve of it. The ban on federal funds to these groups was put in place by Ronald Reagan, but lifted by Bill Clinton. George W. Bush re-instituted the ban after taking office in 2001, but Obama has once again lifted it.
This should give a great deal of hope to the pro-life community. The fact is the days of unrestricted legal abortion are numbered in this country. The majority of Americans now believe that an unborn child is a human being and that killing it without a very compelling reason is a profoundly immoral act. The fact that a majority still do not favor an outright overturn of Roe vs. Wade only means that the public is still struggling with exactly where the lines should be drawn.
The abortion and Guantanamo Bay prison decisions are especially unpopular among Republicans; only 8% approve of the former and 11% of the latter. But these are also the least popular decisions among independents and Democrats as well, though a majority of Democrats still approve of both.
This is no great surprise. As Rush points out liberalism is a religion and abortion is its sacrament (racism is its original sin and global warming is its Apocalypse).
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