THE FIRST 100 DAYS - POLL RESULTS

From a Los Angeles Times poll (unfortunately, no link is available).

Besides the hat, the oath flub, the Cabinet tax problems and cheesy gifts for Britain's leader, how's Barack Obama doing?

7.2% - Really well
1.8% - Good
1.7% - So-so
5.5% - Disappointing
8.2% - Bad
75.7% - Scary bad

2564 total responses

Obama's policies are:

89.4% - Too liberal
2.7% - Insufficiently liberal
6.7% - Just right
1.3% - Too conservative

2549 total responses

Obama's spending plans and deficits:

3.0% - Inspire me
0.5% - Don't matter
4.8% - Are about right
7.2% - Worry me
84.4% - Really scare me

2564 total responses

Slowly withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq for now and sending more to Afghanistan strikes me as:

25.1% - Just the right thing
9.6% - Doesn't matter
20.7% - A betrayal of his anti-war stance
44.6% - Real trouble later

2532 total responses

Talking with Iran and North Korea about their nuclear weapons programs is:

10.1% - Appropriate
10.3% - Naive but necessary
79.7% - Hopeless

2544 total responses

Watching and listening to Obama speak makes me feel:

6.3% - Hopeful
3.3% - Confident
72.2% - Suspicious
18.1% - Sleepy

2548 total responses

What I like most about Obama so far is:

8.3% - His confidence
1.6% - His speeches
0.6% - His spending
0.8% - His Cabinet
5.8% - His family
82.9% - His dog

2479 total responses

What I like least about Obama so far is:

29.8% - His arrogance
2.4% - His speeches
32.3% - His spending
17.4% - His national security plans
18.2% - His other plans like healthcare reform

2477 total responses

As a vice president who was a senator since Obama was in elementary school, Joe Biden has turned out so far to be:

2.1% - An inspiration
3.5% - Better than I expected
5.0% - OK
57.1% - An embarrassment
32.2% - Who cares?

2559 total responses

Overall, so far I'd give the Obama administration an:

3.4% - A+
3.7% - A
2.1% - B
1.8% - C
10.8% - D
15.5% - F
62.8% - Whatever comes beneath F

2567 total responses

An F-minus?

What’s striking about the Los Angeles Times poll is not that it’s so negative; it’s that it’s a LA Times poll. Of course, it’s an unscientific internet poll, so it’s possible that it could have been “hijacked” by anti-Obama voters.

But ...

(CNN) — The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday, as the Obama administration marks 100 days in office, asked respondents to use a grading scale of A, B, C, D and F, where A is excellent and F is very poor.

Two percent of those questioned gave a grade of A, 15 percent a B, 25 percent a C, 24percent a D and 34 percent an F.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted April 23-26, with 2,019 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus two percentage points.

Obama gets a “D” ...

In the very same article, CNN wrote “A new national poll suggests that when Americans are asked how well things were going in the country under the administration of President George W. Bush, they respond with a grade of D-plus.”

When I was teaching, a D-plus still beat a D.