As Obama's Poll Numbers Dive, Media Cheerleaders Attempt "Underwater" Rescue

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll has sparked concern among the the leg-tingling media types for good reason.  Key findings in the poll show that Obama is a big disappointment:

Some 30% in the poll said they "do not really relate'' to Mr. Obama. Only 8% said that at the beginning of his presidency. Fewer than half give him positive marks when asked if he is "honest and straightforward.'' And 49% rate him positively when asked if he has "strong leadership qualities,'' down from 70% when Mr. Obama took office and a drop of 8 points since January.

Just 40% rate him positively on his "ability to handle a crisis," an 11-point drop since January. Half disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the oil spill, including one in four Democrats.

"As a Democrat and as a woman, I am disappointed in him," said poll respondent Melissa Riner, a 42-year-old law clerk from Mesa, Ariz. Referring to the oil spill, Ms. Riner added, "I don't think he's handling it. He doesn't seem to be doing anything. He just talks."

James Ciarmataro, a 23-year-old stay-at-home dad from Macomb, Mich., said it was difficult to relate to Mr. Obama, because the president is "eating steak dinners at the White House and playing golf" while the country is suffering.

Imagine the disappointed faces at NBC and MSNBC when they read these grim reviews of the One that sends a tingle through the liberal legs of Chris Matthews and crew.  Not to worry, borrowing bathtub boy's scuba gear Tingles Matthews attempts an "underwater" rescue operation that would make the notoriously liberal General Stanley McChrystal proud:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: It may have been done that way but the President may benefit here. There is a question that has been raised in this handling of the oil spill – about the chain of command and executive authority. And here's a chance for him and somewhat in a way or somewhat in a personnel manner to insist on his role as commander in chief. In a way that hasn't been so clear during this whole oil spill matter. BP has been the front institution, not the United States government, in this whole horror down in the gulf and I think its hurt the President's standing.

Enter the chorus of media elites crooning silly love songs to their brilliant leader:



I don't know about you but all my doubts about his leadership are erased. The thin-skinned POTUS fires the General he appointed  and now it's time to move over Abe Lincoln - Barack Obama is back and better than ever.

Politico prepares the way for Obama's space in the history books providing a readers with The tick-tock: How President Obama took command of the McChrystal situation.  You would think they were detailing the timeline of events leading up to a secret showdown with the Iranian leadership or something.  Obama doesn't confront those enemies though -  just the liberal Generals who think "Rolling Stone" a sufficiently war-friendly publication in which they can spill their doubts about the Progressive paragon Barack Obama.  


McChrystal is now an afterthought, a hapless victim of the "brilliant" and "diabolically clever" Barack according to Joe Klein.  Klein evidently got the "brilliant" memo and adds the "diabolically clever" bit all on his own.  Klein unleashes the nearest thesaurus and has a veritable adjective Mardi Gras as he paints a picture of an event set to answer all those timeless questions about Democratic leadership and the military:

It was the nature of McChrystal's blunder that made the reascension of Petraeus inevitable. It was the insular, locker-room puerility of McChrystal's team, spewing in a recent Rolling Stone article — the stone-cold belief that they had all the answers; that the civilians in charge, especially those who were members of the Democratic Party, were just a bunch of feckless chin pullers — that made the incident so dangerous; it cut far too close to the bone. It raised timeless questions about civilian authority over the military in wartime and a nagging one that has shadowed American politics since Vietnam: whether Democrats are too soft, too removed from the realities of military life, to pursue an effective national-security policy.

In one fell swoop Klein recreates the whole "Team of Rivals" narrative the media loved so much at the outset of the Obama presidency:

And that is why the Petraeus appointment is at once brilliant and clever — because his prickly relationship with the President has been the symbolic heart of this problem, and now it will take center stage, in Washington and on the battlefields of Afghanistan. How it is resolved, if it is resolved, will determine the fate of Obama's presidency.

Klein carefully avoids the fact the prickliness in the relationship was entirely on the President's part.  Of course it is resolved, Obama no longer needs to undermine Petraeus' success in Iraq to win the election.  He won as we are reminded endlessly.  If anything Obama's brilliant choice was a tacit admission his demagoguery of the Surge was - how shall I say it - bullshit.  Klein must know this because the rest of his piece goes to lengths to cast doubts on the counterinsurgency strategy as key to the success in Iraq while he builds to the "real question, whether this Democratic President and the military, symbolized by Petraeus, can make the adjustments necessary to live with each other."  Is there any doubt who would be portrayed by the media as unable to make the necessary adjustments?

Klein, Matthews and the rest of the fawning media will never let this President fail without a fight.  It should be interesting to watch what they do with Obama's polling numbers over the next few weeks.  No doubt any downturn will be rationalized while any minor uptick will be proof of Obama's brilliance.  Mission Accomplished.