The bad news for him and the even worse newsfor us
by digby
There are a couple of polls out today to measure the first hundred days. It's not good news for the Donald. As with the Gallup poll from a couple of days ago, they show that he's the least successful president at the hundred day mark of any president since they've been measuring. And he comes up short by a huge margin. It would appear that showing yourself to be an ignorant, cretinous, corrupt, flim-flam man isn't all that impressive.
Here are a few results from the NBC/WSJ poll about his personal characteristics:
The new NBC/WSJ poll also shows an erosion in some of Trump's top perceived qualities, with 50 percent of respondents giving Trump high marks for being firm and decisive in his decision-making - down from the 57 percent who gave him high marks here in February.
Another 39 percent of Americans give him high marks for changing business as usual in Washington - down from 45 percent two months ago.
Thirty-nine percent give him high marks for being effective and getting things done - down from 46 percent who said this back in February.
And only 25 percent give him high marks for being honest and trustworthy - down from 34 percent.
Meanwhile, his standing is mostly unchanged when it comes to his perceived weaknesses: Just 27 percent give him high marks for being knowledgeable and experienced enough to handle the presidency, and only 21 percent give him high marks for having the right temperament.
Unfortunately, the one thing he got high marks for is the one thing the president and his cabinet full of Generals can unilaterally put to good use once they see it's all he's got:
The best news for President Trump in the poll is on the issue of Syria.
Sixty-two percent of Americans say they support the Trump administration's recent military action in response to the Syrian government's chemical-weapon attack against its own people.
By party, 88 percent of Republicans, 43 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of independents back that recent military action.
And 50 percent of all Americans say they approve of Trump's handling of Syria - 10 points higher than his overall approval rating.
This suggests that the "rally" effect will work for Trump. That is very, very, very bad news.
I want to give the news media a big shout-out for their help in that. Their delirious coverage of the "beautiful" Syrian strikes and declarations that "Donald Trump became president tonight" undoubtedly jacked those numbers up for Trump. So, once again, we can see the contours of how a half-wit GOP president, elected under dubious circumstances, may rise above it: war, aided and abetted by the media which gets big, big ratings for war porn and where major careers are made. It's not like it hasn't worked before.
Not that we didn't know that. But I had a rather wan hope that something had been learned over the past 15 years. But no.
