This week’s report card for President Obama our graders John Zogby and Jed Babbin divided over the impact of the president’s policies.
John Zogby
President Obama’s 48 percent approval rating remains intact, while the same percentage disapprove.
Labor force participation is up for the fourth month in a row and jobless claims were at a 43 year low. Mr. Obama continues to win in the public relations war against the GOP. Voters are not happy but there is more public revulsion against a Congress that cannot deliver a budget, hold hearings for a Supreme Court nominee, or agree on lunch.
So I would give Mr. Obama a C+, except that he gets a bump by the other team missing in action, a forfeit.
Grade B-
Jed Babbin
President Obama began the week by telling the FBI and the Justice Department — using Fox News’s Chris Wallace as a megaphone — that Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be indicted for using her private email system “carelessly” because he didn’t think she’d endangered national security. With his next breath Obama insisted that (wink! wink!) there wouldn’t be any political interference in the investigation of Clinton’s conduct, which, to some experts, would be criminal.
Peabody Energy, one of the last big coal companies to have temporarily survived his EPA’s industry-strangling regulations, declared bankruptcy bringing Obama closer to his 2008 promise to drive the industry out of business.
Obama, who rarely has an unexpressed thought, neglected to comment on this week on several important events including the incident in which Russian fighters flew a mock attack against a Navy destroyer, coming dangerously close to the ship.
Obama did brag about his success against [the Islamic State] which is, unlike the domestic coal industry, thriving.
Grade D
John Zogby is the senior analyst for Zogby Analytics and author (with Joan Snyder Kuhl) of “The First Globals: Understanding, Managing, and Unleashing our Millennial Generation.” Follow him at @TheJohnZogby.
Jed Babbin is an Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him @jedbabbin.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
