Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Sunday morning talk shows covered President Obama and his handling of the three major scandals that have supposedly hurt his administration:  Benghazi, Department of Justice surveillance of the Associated Press, and the IRS harassment of Tea Party non-profit organizations.    Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and the McLaughlin Group all devoted significant airtime to these issues.  CNN did also but concluded its coverage with its most recent poll of President Obama’s approval rating:

“A new poll shows that recent scandals haven’t hurt President Barack Obama’s approval rating.

The poll, from CNN and ORC International, found that 53 percent of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing, while 45 percent disapprove. This number remains virtually unchanged from polls taken before the scandals hit.  The poll was taken on May 17 and 18, and has a 3 percent margin of error.   A CNN poll taken in early April showed Obama’s approval rating to be 51 percent. According to a Gallup poll taken in early May, the president’s approval rating was 50 percent.   The CNN poll also found that 71 percent of Americans believe the actions of the IRS employees who targeted tea party groups were unacceptable. However, 6 in 10 respondents said they trusted the president’s statements on the issue.”

My opinion is that the American people want our government including its President to concentrate its energy and efforts on economic and other problems and not chasing who did what when,  which in the long run expends huge resources and yields minimal if any benefits.

Tony