Ray of Sunshine?

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The Feed • 8-5-2011

Maybe you really can't fool all of the people all of the time. A New York Times poll finds that 82% of folks in the US are disgusted with Congress and the debt ceiling deal. And they think Congress should be doing something about jobs instead. The Tea Party's negatives have almost doubled. Some details:

"The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll. In mid-April 29 percent of those polled viewed the movement unfavorably, while 26 percent viewed it favorably. And 43 percent of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on the Republican Party, up from 27 percent in mid-April.

Americans seem to be as annoyed with the Tea Party as Alice was.

Oddly, folks seem to be more annoyed with Congress, and especially the Republicans than with the President. Maybe people aren't so dumb after all:

"Republicans in Congress shoulder more of the blame for the difficulties in reaching a debt-ceiling agreement than President Obama and the Democrats, the poll found.

"The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.

"The public was more evenly divided about how Mr. Obama handled the debt ceiling negotiations: 47 percent disapproved and 46 percent approved."

When you consider that at least some of the disapproval of Obama and the Democrats comes from the left, this is actually kind of encouraging.

Read the whole thing here.