Shifting tides of approval on both President Obama personally and the healthcare law known as Obamacare require creative headlines to steer towards a fast dissolving narrative established last fall. Since November President Obama has been characterized as incompetent, a liar, and a lame duck President for everything from a summer of phony scandals to a botched website roll-out. Since then the news media has been aggressively trying to build upon that framework as a permanent political reality; something unconquerable and comparable to Hurricane Katrina. The frustration that Fox News producers must feel every few months is beginning to sting Jonathan Karl and his colleagues at ABC News. Over at ABC News, a bastion of liberal ideologues frames President Obama's markedly improved ratings as a general distrust in all politicians.
"President Obama will speak to the nation Tuesday night with approval ratings lower than for any of his previous State of the Union addresses and with Americans broadly pessimistic that he or lawmakers of either party will make good decisions for the future of the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll."
Yes... general pessimism. That's what this poll says. Just like
the most recent poll on healthcare where 48% of registered voters approve of the ACA and 49% disapprove shows that the ACA is "collapsing in on itself".
If we took away the headlines and allowed the data to speak for itself, we would find tucked away in ABC News' polls a simple trend. The media can influence people's attitudes for a very short period of time before the truth begins to slowly correct the manufactured variance in President Obama and the healthcare laws approval ratings in a general sense. Republicans will never provide President Obama with unfiltered acceptance of his achievements so he starts with a base of ideological voters who are desperate to try and save Reagan's legacy from the reality of a 30-year long failed social experiment known as Reaganomics.
In the end casual political observers will find one of two possible outcomes. Either the healthcare law works, Iran stops developing weapons grade uranium, and the economy starts to work for average Americans or a combination of these policies fails. Until then we are stuck with the media desperately trying to drive the narrative with a blind fold on.