http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/13/10502/0735/995/707848by Jed Lewison
Fri Mar 13, 2009 at 07:50:03 AM PDT
So the rightwing media thought they'd figured out the perfect way to attack Obama: promote a Wall Street Journal survey of economists in which President Obama received a failing grade.
The usual suspects at Fox were all to eager to please their Republican masters, but even CNN and MSNBC joined in pimping the story.
The thing is, these weren't a group of randomly selected economists -- these are a group of conservatives, the overwhelming majority of whom backed John McCain's economic policies in the presidential campaign. Moreover, they aren't too bright: half of them thought the recession ended seven months ago!Check out these numbers from the WSJ archives of previous surveys:
* February 2008: 76% of the economists surveyed by the WSJ said they supported either McCain or Romney on economic policy over Obama or Clinton
* May 2008: 75% of these economists said they preferred McCain's fiscal policy to Obama's
* August 2008: 49% said the recession had already ended, and 50% believed the economy would be the same or better by election day.
* September 2008: 66% said they opposed any new stimulus plan
* December 2008: the economists predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8.4%. It's already at 8.1% and rising.
In short, this was a survey of the same bloody idiots who got us into the mess President Obama is now trying to extract us from.Thank god they don't approve of the job he's doing! Their disapproval is a badge of freaking honor!