Last week was one of the roughest weeks of the Obama Presidency to day, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at his job approval numbers:
A new poll shows a majority approving of President Obama’s job performance after a week where his administration faced a tough trio of controversies.
A CNN/ORC poll released Sunday morning shows 53 percent approve of the president, with 45 percent disapproving. Obama held a 51 percent approval in the last CNN poll conducted in early April.
“An approval rating that has not dropped and remains over 50 [percent] will probably be taken as good news by Democrats after the events of the last week,” said CNN polling director Keating Holland, announcing the poll findings.
Seventy-one percent said that the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative political groups seeking tax exempt status for higher scrutiny was unacceptable, with 26 percent finding those actions acceptable.
The IRS actions brought criticism from the White House and both parties. Obama called the actions “outrageous,” and accepted the resignation of Steven Miller, the acting director of the agency, last week.
Lawmakers have begun hearings and Republicans have vowed to discover if officials at the White House knew about the scandal, despite claims from Obama that he didn’t “know anything” until reading news reports of the matter.
The poll, though, finds support for the president, with 61 percent saying that his statements on the scandal have been accurate, with 35 percent disagreeing with his characterization of the IRS actions.
But there is also support for the GOP handling of the IRS matter, with 54 percent saying congressional Republicans are reacting appropriately and 42 percent saying they are overreacting.
Fifty-five percent believe the nation’s tax agency acted on its own, with 37 percent saying they believe the administration ordered the IRS to target Tea Party groups.
But the poll finds less support for the administration’s handling of the Benghazi Consulate attack, with 42 percent satisfied with the White House. Fifty-three percent say they are dissatisfied.
Obviously, this past week is only the beginning of a story that’s likely to be around for awhile and there may be some chipping away at the President’s reputation among the public. However, this has got to be good news for the White House right now, and perhaps notice to the GOP that they will be overplaying their hand if they try to turn their investigations in to a partisan war rather than a fact-finding mission.
