On Thursday, September 18, a strange thing happened: ABC actually covered President Obama’s plummeting poll numbers. No, not ABC News, but the daytime ABC program The View which spent nearly four minutes discussing his falling approval ratings following his speech laying out America's strategy to defeat ISIS.
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg proclaimed that President Obama “might be afraid…the latest approval ratings seemed to have sunk lower than George Bush's levels. Partly because more than half of Americans are disapproving of the way he seems to be handling terrorism.”
During the segment, Nicolle Wallace, former Communications Director for President George W. Bush, noted that following President Obama’s recent speech on ISIS “some people I think in the White House had hoped those numbers might bounce up a little bit, that the country would rally to back him. And the numbers are still in the 40s. They’re the lowest numbers of his term and again they’re about the same George Bush had at this point in his presidency.”
Wallace did make sure to mention that “about 60% of Americans back airstrikes which is what the president wants to do” a figure that has been repeated by the media multiple times to garner support for President Obama’s ISIS strategy.
Given that The View is not a news show and none of its hosts are journalists makes their 4 minute devotion to Obama’s approval ratings even more damning for ABC News given its history of minimizing Obama’s declining poll numbers.
On September 9, ABC barely mentioned Obama’s approval rating at near record lows, with newsreader Amy Robach noting “new indications that Americans are losing faith in President Obama. An ABC News/Washington Post poll finds only 38 percent of Americans approve of how the President has handled foreign affairs.” No mention of President Obama’s overall job approval continuing to decline.
In fact, ABC, as well as CBS and NBC, has consistently buried President Obama’s poor job approval ratings, a feat that did not exist during the George W. Bush administration. MRC Research Director Rich Noyes looked at network news coverage of Bush and Obama’s job approval from January 1-August 31 during the sixth year of their respective presidencies. The "big three" networks mentioned Bush’s bad poll numbers 52 times (16 references by ABC) compared to just 2 times for Obama (1 ABC reference in January 2014) during the same time frame.
It’s quite telling that The View, a non-news program on ABC is covering Obama’s declining poll numbers in the same fashion as the network’s news division, an embarrassing realization for one of America’s largest news networks.
See relevant transcript below.
ABC’s The View
September 18, 2014
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: But you know who might be afraid, President Obama child. The latest approval ratings seemed to have sunk lower than George Bush's levels. Partly because more than half of Americans are disapproving of the way he seems to be handling terrorism. Now ISIS is a big threat that keeps growing. Does he have to -- does he have the wherewithal to get us into another war after trying to get us out of a war for eight years?
NICOLLE WALLACE: You know, I worked for a president with these kind of numbers and it’s really really difficult to govern. And what’s upsetting to me is that his is probably the most important challenge our country faces. Not our Democratic president but our country. Us. Anyone that wants to feel safe in this country should care about his stated goal of defeating these terrorists.
We call them ISIS, sometimes we call them ISIL. They're Islamic extremist terrorists and he addressed the country a week ago. Some people I think in the White House had hoped those numbers might bounce up a little bit, that the country would rally to back him. And the numbers are still in the 40s. They’re the lowest numbers of his term and again they’re about the same George Bush had at this point in his presidency.
ROSIE O’DONNELL: Do you think that's because the country is very weary of a 10-year war with you know kind of limited results? And can you actually declare war on a philosophy?
ROSIE PEREZ: I think you can. I mean with Nazi Germany it was a philosophy.
O’DONNELL: But it was a country.
PEREZ: It was a country but still it was a philosophy. They thought that you know Hitler said that the Arian nation was supreme. And everyone that did not fit into that category had to be annihilated. So I think that you can go to war with that. I just want to say something. It's that I am so terrified. I am so conflicted. And when I heard on the radio this morning that Iran's president denounced ISIL that scared me.
WALLACE: It makes you confused who our enemies are and who our allies are, right?PEREZ: Exactly, exactly. And he said that the killing and beheading of innocent people in fact is a matter of shame for them.
WALLACE: Here’s the other thing that I think we have to remember. About 60% of Americans back airstrikes which is what the president wants to do. He wants to strike them and weaken them. Who do we think is flying those planes? They're American pilots. So should one of those planes get shot down, who goes and gets them? That's boots on the ground. It's a terrifying slippery slope for people.
GOLDBERG: It is. And you know look he’s between a rock and a hard place. All he’s wanted to do is get out of there. And now we are faced with the possibility of having to go back in there and we do. Because if we don’t take this stand, we're going to be afraid all the time. I don't want to send any more of our sons and daughters back into war but damn it I'm getting tired of these people trying to scare us and say you know hey be scared of me, give me money. No, man.
You know, thank God this is not 50 years ago where the options were much more limited and much more crazy. All you have to do is luck at Hiroshima and say hey we don't do that so we’re trying to figure out how to do it. I don't understand why we're having such a hard time with it.
O’DONNELL; Well, I think because it is a generalized philosophy as opposed to a nation. So I don't know how you go to war with a thought process unless you go to what created those thoughts initially.
WALLACE: We’ve got to do both Rosie, right? I mean we’ve got to do both. We’ve got to be in the region making clear we don't wish to harm people just because they disagree with us.
O’DONNELL: But we have harmed people in the last ten years. And I think as a country we need to own that. And we need to own that we will be arming people in Syria as well-
WALLACE: Well, I think everyone should trust that this president is a very reluctant warrior and I think the only fair critique that Republicans have is that in the past he hasn’t always done what he said he's going to do. I think he is this time. I think he is deadly serious. I think the beheadings of innocent journalists has really solidified his resolve to go after these guys. And I think he’ll be more targeted than perhaps someone who was a less reluctant warrior.
GOLDBERG: This is going to be going on and on. This is not going away anytime soon.
