Another poll -- this one from The Washington Post and ABC -- shows that Americans disapprove of the events being highlighted in the current Scandalpalooza, but they aren't turning against the president:
Majorities of Americans believe that the Internal Revenue Service deliberately harassed conservative groups by targeting them for special scrutiny and say that the Obama administration is trying to cover up important details about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans last year.Ezra Klein thinks this is because people don't blame the president:
But a new Washington Post-ABC News poll also finds that allegations of impropriety related to the controversies have yet to affect President Obama’s political standing.
The president's approval rating, at 51 percent positive and 44 percent negative, has remained steady in the face of fresh disclosures about the IRS, the Benghazi attack and the Justice Department's secret collection of telephone records of Associated Press journalists as part of a leak investigation....
The public is simply separating the scandals from Obama. They’re upset about the IRS, Benghazi, and DoJ stories. But most think the president has been truthful.Except that, as noted above, a majority of Americans (55%-33%) think the Obama administration "is trying to cover up the facts" with regard to Benghazi, and a small plurality (45%-42%) feel the same way about the IRS story.
My guess? They see misdeeds, and many think these misdeeds extend to the White House, but (apart from conservatives) they don't care all that much. Most ordinary Americans don't identify with the tea party. And four people died in Benghazi, but a lot of Americans have died overseas in the past dozen years. And they certainly can't identify with high-level journalists. This is yet another way the public is saying, Hey, when the hell are you going to start caring about us?
Obsessing about scandals is the new obsessing about the debt and deficits -- it's what D.C. insiders do instead of focusing on the economy and jobs and ordinary people's economic uncertainty. Obama, at least, pays some attention to ordinary Americans' economic distress -- and that's why the public gives him a not-great but passing grade:
A bare majority of Americans [51%] say they believe that Obama is focused on issues that are important to them personally; just 33 percent think so of congressional Republicans.Clear majorities of Americans think these scandals are bad? Well, clear majorities of Americans consistently tell pollsters that the federal debt and deficits are bad -- but when you ask them what their top priorities are for government, the economy and jobs outrank the debt and deficits by a considerable margin.
So this is the new public-be-damned monomania. The public still wants what it's wanted for years -- jobs and a better economy.
