People In Suits Can't Read

I think I may make this a running feature of the blog: people who get dressed up for work every day in a $400 jacket and tie who can't read worth a damn. I doubt David Brooks is proud of himself for inaugurating the list, but he can cram it with walnuts.

On the November 4 broadcast of PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, New York Times columnist David Brooks falsely claimed that during their presidencies Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan saw their job approval ratings fall to "the 20s." During a discussion with nationally syndicated columnist Mark Shields, Brooks argued that President Bush's recent slide in the polls is "not irreversible. Clinton was much lower than Bush is now. Reagan was lower."

[...]

Bush's lowest approval rating to date was a 35-percent mark in a CBS News poll from October 30-November 1 (with a margin of error of +/-3 percent). According to the polling archive of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, Reagan's lowest approval rating was also 35 percent, in a Gallup Poll from January 28-31, 1983. The Roper Center lists Clinton's low at a 36 percent, according to a Yank/Time/CNN Poll from May 26-27, 1993.