A top priority of the Obama presidency has been to restore the image of the United States in the world; in image allegedly left in tatters by the Bush administration. Unfortunately for the president, however, Americans by a wide margin now believe that that the United States standing in the world has not improved, but actually declined since President Obama took office.I'd really care about that if I wasn't caught up in this indescribable malaise...
According to a poll conducted in late February and released this week by Democracy Corps-Third Way, Americans by a 10-point margin think that the standing of the United States has dropped under Obama -- by a whopping 51 percent to 41 percent. On the question of national security, Democrats now trail Republicans by 17 percent, and on the "right-track, wrong track," question just 31 feel the country is headed in the right directions, with a massive 62 percent registering discontent.
I'm holding my breath, waiting for another debacle in the Iranian desert.
Reported in The Washington Times, though not much in evidence in other "mainstream media," the poll is far from the product of a hopeful conservative imagination. Democracy Corps-Third Way is a Democratic polling group headed by former Clinton adviser James Carville and Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg. Their purpose is to warn Democrats of the electoral turbulence ahead. "We would not want the election to be held today, with this poll, Greenberg told the newspaper. "If the election were held today, this would be a 'change election.'"
We're not yet at the 'get a rope' stage, but the tar's starting to bubble and that squawking you hear is the chickens being plucked.