In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages, TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira reports that “the public appears to be warming” to “President Barack Obama’s decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan but start withdrawing forces in 2011.” Teixeira elaborates:
Prior to the announcement back in November, just 36 percent thought the military effort in Afghanistan was going very or fairly well and 57 percent thought the effort was not going too well or not at all well. This month, a new Pew poll shows these figures almost reversed: Fifty-two percent now think the effort is going very or fairly well, while those with a negative judgment are down to 35 percent.
The even better news for the President is that the uptick carries over into his approval rating for his Afghanistan policy, as Teixeira notes:
Reflecting this more positive assessment, Obama’s approval rating on handling the Afghanistan situation has also improved over the time period. Before the decision to send troops was made, 36 percent approved of his handling of Afghanistan, compared to 49 percent who disapproved. In the new Pew poll, his approval ratings have flipped to 51 percent approval and 35 percent disapproval.
An impressive turn-around for the President and his Afghanistan policy, contributing to a very good week at the white house.
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’sbeen all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
