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Gallup is now doing for Obama the slight of hand it used to do for W: reporting dips only in the context of increases.
The title of this is “approval went up – bestest speech worked” – but it’s the subtitle that caught my attention
Had dropped to 59% prior to his Tuesday congressional address
because I did an entry just that day and the number “59” was nowhere to be seen in that report.
The headline for that hidden 59% approval?
Receives solid approval, but not extraordinary in historical terms
The only relevant number I remember from that old report was “dipped by 5 points” – which would lead one to think it was 63 not 59…. Nice try, Gallup. You were wildly successful with W too.
Update
More on what they are doing with those numbers from myiq2xu at the Confluence:
Such is the diagnosis of the Obama solution from the Nobel prize in Economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz (h/t MakeThemAccountable)
In an interview with Democracy Now he said
the Obama administration has failed to address the structural and regulatory flaws at the heart of the financial crisis that stand in the way of economic recovery. Stiglitz also talks about why he thinks Obama’s strategy on Afghanistan is wrong and that Obama’s plan to keep a “residual force” in Iraq will be “very expensive.” On health care, Stiglitz says a single-payer system is “the only alternative.”
More specifically, the interview took place after that bestest speech and on the banks Stiglitz said
is he holding the banks accountable?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, so far, it hasn’t happened. I think the more fundamental issues are the following. He says what we need is to get lending restarted. If he had taken the $700 billion that we gave, levered it ten-to-one, created some new institution guaranteed—provide partial guarantees going for, that would have generated $7 trillion of new lending. So, if he hadn’t looked at the past, tried to bail out the banks, bail out the shareholders, bail out the other—the bankers’ retirement fund, we would have easily been able to generate the lending that he says we need.
Asked as to why bankers rather than banks are being saved
MY GOODMAN: Why is Obama saving these bankers?
JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, we could all guess about the politics. We know one of the problems about American politics is the role of campaign contributions, and that’s plagued every one of our major problems.
And he remarked that most other countries in the world are taking more efficient measures than us.
I didn’t get a Nobel prize and still struggle to understand economics, but I figured this one out the moment the financial crisis was in the news
Obama beholden to Wall Street – how can he reform it?
But I admire Stiglitz’s integrity. Unlike some low self-estime bloggers, the fact that he had conversations with Obama during the campaign didn’t melt his brain.
The sad part however is that the conversations with Stiglitz didn’t leave a trace on Obama either.
On the same topic, as a bonus, also via Make them accountable, Fiore’s cartoon – Zombie Bank
Soon after Tweety lost his twingling feeling, seems the Obama friendlist tabloid is starting to be not so much into Obama anymore. First came the doubtful headline after the bestest speech ever. Today’s cover takes it a notch up (for those able to look at the bottom half )
and just in case someone missed the point, they get more direct inside
with an article to match, although an important qualifier is included
The giant numbers are due in part to Obama administration’s decision to print all of the red ink, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and national emergencies, which the Bush administration left out.
Fair enough, but how about ending the wars rather than budgeting those expenses?
…
OK, he didn’t quite put it that way. According to Think Progress
On Feb. 23, Public Policy Polling released findings showing that only 37 percent of women hold a favorable opinion of the hate radio host, compared to 56 percent of men.
As Jill Zimon notes, Limbaugh brought up this poll yesterday on his radio show, noting that it was one of the largest gender gaps Public Policy Polling has seen on any issue it has polled in the past year. His solution? To convene a summit of women to find out why they dislike him:
Wow! You’d think he was running for office or something!
I mean, the notion that Limbaugh is clueless why women hate him is a laugh to be sure. The more serious aspect: he plans to listen to women’s opinions?
They can be liberal, conservative. They could be non-audience members, could be audience members. But I want some of these women to start telling me what it is I must do to close the gender gap — or, if not what it is I must do to close the gender gap, what it is I’ve done that has caused the gender gap; assuming the gender gap is true and that the poll is true.
OK, this is Rush Limbaugh 
so I am not exactly impressed, neither convinced that this is anything else but a publicity stunt. Still, the point remains that he found it necessary to even pretend he cares.
Wow! Who knows, maybe now, soon, even politicians running for office might pretend to care what the majority of the voters think
Update
Just figured out a possible reason in Rush’s sudden interest in women’s opinion:
it has to do with the future GOP candidate, as Stray Dog explained: Jindal down, Palin up.
Limbaugh has put all his money on Jindal, but maybe wants to hedge his bets now. Or at least appear to have done so.
Not Your Sweetie 
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