Our Political Quote of the Day comes via MSNBC’s First read about rating the current Congress, its approval ratings, and Barack Obama’s polls:
*** “Worst. Congress. Ever.”: A couple of weeks ago, congressional scholar Norm Ornstein dubbed this 112th Congress as the “Worst. Congress. Ever.” And after the combative and exhaustive debt debate, it appears the American public agrees with him. Per a brand-new New York Times/CBS poll, 82% now disapprove of Congress’ job, which is a record high in that poll. A CNN poll also had Congress’ disapproval at an all-time high of 84%. Here are more numbers from the NYT/CBS survey: 72% disapproved how congressional Republican handled the debt negotiations, while 66% said that of congressional Dems and 47% said that of Obama; the Tea Party’s fav/unfav is now 20%-40%, compared with 26%-29% back in April; and by a margin of greater than 2-to-1, respondents said creating jobs should be a higher priority than spending cuts. The best news for Obama this entire week? His job approval (48%-47%) remains relatively unchanged. By comparison, however, House Speaker John Boehner’s disapproval rating has sky-rocketed to 57%.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.