'Post-Partisan' Prez Can't Get Traction Across Aisle

Dems and Independents approve of the Prez, but the GOP still doesn't
By Katherine Thompson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 12, 2009 11:40 AM CDT
'Post-Partisan' Prez Can't Get Traction Across Aisle
One of the big reasons for increasingly partisan presidential approval ratings, writes Clarence Page, is fired-up talk show hosts and angry Internet commentators.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President Obama's ratings are sky-high among Democrats but have reached a Bush-esque low among Republicans, making for a 61-point gap for the president who campaigned on a "post-partisan" platform. What's causing this problem? It starts with the fact that the public is more polarized than ever, writes Clarence Page in the Chicago Tribune.

"I blame some of us in the heat-seeking media for encouraging you to think increasingly along right-left lines," Page writes. "Talk radio and cable TV in particular have become more openly partisan to boost ratings." Meanwhile, "the ravings of partisan talk-show hosts are helped along by a fog of Web messages from angry Net nuts." (More partisanship stories.)

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