200 days down, 1,263 days to go, and CNN is asking people if Obama’s Presidency is a “failure”:
A rather surprising finding from the newly released CNN poll. Question three on the national survey of 1,136 adults (which includes an oversample of African-Americans) asks, “Do you consider the first six months of the Obama administration to be a success or a failure?”
Thirty-seven percent (37%) said they believe the Obama administration is a “failure,” while 51% consider it a “success” and 11% say it’s still “too soon to tell.”
As James Young points out, the question itself is pathologically silly. It’s simply not possible at this early stage to say that any Presidency is a “success” or “failure,” or even to define what those terms will mean when the time to make the judgment comes. When George W. Bush’s Presidency was 200 days old, 9/11 hadn’t even occurred. When his father’s was 200 days old, Saddam Hussein still hadn’t invaded Kuwait. When Bill Clinton’s was 200 days old, Monica Lewinsky was a college student in Oregon.
One can have an opinion about how the President has performed to date, but anyone who says they have an opinion on the entirety of his Presidency is an idiot.
