Why is Pres. Obama a polarizing figure?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
President Obama has the most polarized approval ratings for a second-year president since Dwight Eisenhower.
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A new Gallup Poll shows 81% of Democrats and 13% of Republicans approved of the job Mr. Obama was doing as president during his second year.
This 68-point gap is up from a 65-point gap during Mr. Obama's first year as president. That was also a record.
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton are the only other presidents who had gaps of at least 50 points between party approvals by their second year in office.
This isn't to say that Mr. Obama is the most polarizing president ever. That award goes to President George W. Bush. He had three years in office with a gap in party ratings that topped 70 points.
But Bush's earlier years in office were less polarizing - mostly due to the support he received after the 9/11 attacks.
As for President Obama, he arrived in Washington full of talk about unity and bipartisanship. And his initial approval ratings were among the highest for any post-World War II president. But Mr. Obama quickly lost most of the Republican support, while maintaining high ratings from Democrats.
It's worth pointing out that this isn't just about Pres. Obama. Our country seems to get more polarized every year. On average, nearly all of the presidents since Reagan have more polarized ratings than those before him.
And we can probably thank hyper-partisan news on cable, the Internet, and talk radio for some of the growing divide.
Here’s my question to you: Why is President Obama such a polarizing figure?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Trust Palin's opinion on Egypt?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
It was only a matter of time before we heard from Sarah Palin.
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The former Alaska governor, who badly bungled her response to the Arizona shootings, had managed to keep quiet on the crisis in Egypt for about two weeks. That was until her interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, where Palin highlighted her lack of foreign policy experience or understanding.
She blasted the Obama administration on Egypt, saying the crisis is the president's 3 a.m. phone call, which "went right to the answering machine."
Palin says the administration hasn't explained to the public what it knows. She says she's "not really enthused" about what's being done in Washington and called for "strength and sound mind" in the White House.
When Palin speaks it's usually a lot of feathers - not very much chicken:
"Who's going to fill the void? (President Hosni) Mubarak, he's gone, one way or the other you know, he is not going to be the leader of Egypt, that that's a given, so now the information needs to be gathered and understood as to who it will be that fills now the void in the government.
"Is it going to be the Muslim Brotherhood? We should not stand for that, or with that or by that. Any radical Islamists, no that is not who we should be supporting and standing by, so we need to find out who was behind all of the turmoil and the revolt and the protests so that good decisions can be made in terms of who we will stand by and support."
Palin's words, once again, amount to a whole lot of nothing.
She criticizes President Barack Obama but doesn't offer any solution.
We should be used to this by now: lots of feathers, no chicken.
Here’s my question to you: How much do you trust Sarah Palin's opinion on Egypt?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
@jackcafferty on Twitter
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