WaPo’s Michael Gerson Doesn’t Read This Blog
It was a bit of a crushing blow to see this new column from former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson in today’s Washington Post.
Gerson — writing about that recent Pew poll finding a big partisan divide over Obama — blasted him as the “most polarizing president” and placed the blame squarely on Obama’s “approach” for producing the disparity between Republican and Democratic attitudes towards him.
“He has united Democrats and united Republicans — against each other,” Gerson wrote, concluding, tearfully, that “it is a sad, unnecessary shame that Barack Obama, the candidate of unity, has so quickly become another source of division.”
But — and this is not an easy thing to bring up, because it means colleague Gerson doesn’t read this blog — none other than the director of Pew’s polling told me in an interview the other day that this is a bogus interpretation.
“It’s unfair to say that Obama has caused this divisiveness or to say that he is a polarizing president,” Michael Dimock, Pew’s associate director, told me. Dimock said this phenomenon is driven by the uncommon Dem enthusiasm, and even the Republican tendency to be more hostile to opposing presidents than Dems.
Parsing this very closely, the person who oversees Pew’s polls thinks Gerson’s interpretation of his poll is wrong and “unfair.” I’ve emailed Gerson and asked him for comment on their difference of opinion, and will update you if I hear back.
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You know after thinking it over I realized what I should have pointed out the last time. The only thing that makes President Obama’s divide bigger than Bill Clinton is that he has more support from DEMOCRATS. That means if his approval ratings were down to Bill Clintons with Dems Clinton would have had a bigger divide because only 26 percent of Republican approved of Clinton compared to 27 percent with Obama. Republicans and Conservatives are just mad because he has unified the Democrats and they know thats going to hurt them BIG TIME.
Oh one more thing, it is wrong to assume he doesn’t read your blog and thats why he ran with the right wing meme. More likely he just isn’t going to let facts get in the way of his opinion piece.
sg — yeah, I hope you’re right. I was being ironic…
Well either he doesn’t read blogs at all or he definitely reads yours. Like I said its the scoop factory around here. I see you linked all over the place now, even on “centrist” sites.
Greg, you’re invading Fantasy World territory by asking Gergen to explain himself. As we all know, George Bush was by far the most popular president in history. Any discontent about his tenure was merely part of a media driven hysteria against him. There isn’t much you will be able to do to get Gergen and his readers to climb out of the Republican Fantasy World, a world where Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and where these last 8 years of been tremendous for our country.
Best of luck in trying, but Gergen I’m sure will only dig himself deeper.
Greg
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Is this the PEW poll you have been posting about?
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http://people-press.org/report/505/partisan-bickering-is-back
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I find it very interesting that nobody is interested in reducing the budget at the expense of not doing healthcare or funding education right now. Also the confidence on the economy numbers can’t be very reassuring to the GOP. What I wonder is what happens if November of this year comes around and President Obama still has approval ratings in the 60s. Will some moderate Republicans break off from the party and start covering their own arse?
Yeah, I read Gerson’s column this morning. I’ve written a number of analyses of his columns previously because he’s a good study of the propagandist-at-work. But he’s become utterly boring because he’s utterly predictable.
“he just isn’t going to let facts get in the way of his opinion piece.”
Both the current Washington Post ombudsman and the previous Washington Post ombudsman have supported the position that, on occasion, opinion columns are not required to get facts straight.
Is it proper to ask Andy Alexander if this is one of those situations?
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-polls-reveal-that-republicans-are.html
James Vega at the Democratic Strategist has a good piece on Gerson’s column… see “The Most Polarizing Column”… http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/
And we’ll note that Rove in the WSJ this morning pushes the same talking point… http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123923500880003227.html
Hmm. Is it true?
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