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30 percent Give Obama Good Marks for Handling of Gates Incident

In an effort to defuse a national controversy, President Obama is hosting a black Harvard professor and the policeman who arrested him at the White House today, but just 30% of U.S. voters give the president good or excellent marks for his handling of the situation over the past week.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 44% believe Obama has done a poor job dealing with the situation in recent days.

Despite the president’s damage control efforts, the new findings are little changed from late last week when 26% said Obama did a good or excellent job answering a press conference question about the incident. Forty-six percent (46%) said the president’s response was poor.

As in the earlier survey, there is a wide division between the views of white and black Americans. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of African-Americans say the president has done a good or excellent job dealing with the controversy over the past week. Just 23% of whites agree, but 50% say he’s done a poor job.
Read entire article at Rasmussen Reports