People in the media can’t interpret polls to save their life — here’s CNN’s Judy Woodruff embarrassing herself on Meet the Press:
MR. RUSSERT: Let’s look at the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll for the latest numbers on President Bush. Job approval: 40 percent. That’s the lowest we’ve ever had for George Bush in his five years as president. Fifty-five percent disapproval. Handling of Iraq? Only 37 percent approve of the way he’s handling Iraq. Fifty-eight disapprove. And how did the Bush administration do with Katrina? Satisfied, 38; dissatisfied, 58. Gwen Ifill, twin challenges confronting this president, Katrina and Iraq.
MS. GWEN IFILL: And all of them are unpalatable for him. The approval numbers are almost less interesting to me than the last two because the approval numbers have been knocking around in the 40s for a while. Not good but he was willing to survive with that and to work with that. The real problem is that this president–the way he has always been praised is for his ability to lead and his ability to protect us. And it looks like in the last couple of weeks neither of those things seem true…
MR. RUSSERT: Judy Woodruff, what’s your take?
MS. JUDY WOODRUFF: I do think these numbers are significant, because as Gwen said, it’s been rolling around, around 40 percent, but this is the first time the negative job performance has outweighed positive. On the feeling thermometer, as you call it, negatives outweigh the positives.
Um, no. It isn’t true that “this is the first time the negative job performance has outweighed positive.” More Americans have disapproved of Bush’s job performance than have approved of it for some time now, dating back as far as the early months of this year in some polls. If by “feeling thermometer” she actually means positive or negative feelings toward Bush, two major polls have also shown more Americans with negative than positive evaluations of Bush before – Gallup in July and ABC News in June (though it is true that other polls showed greater number of Americans indicating favorable feelings toward Bush until recently).
Once again, the media is slow to catch on to the fact that Bush is not a popular president.