Not Buying What The Village Is Selling

With the Village pushing the Obama As Wimp theory since Crotch Bomber blew it, it's interesting to note the President's approval numbers on handling national security and terrorism have gone up since December as Greg Sargent notes.

Okay, some new polling from CNN just landed in the old in-box, and it appears to suggest that the public isn’t buying claims that Obama’s handling of the Christmas Day plot was too detached, cool, or weak:

As you know, a man has been charged with attempting to use an explosive device on Christmas Day to blow up a plane that was flying to Detroit. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama has responded to that incident?

Approve 57%
Disapprove 39%
No opinion 4%

The real way of telling whether Obama’s handling of that particular plot has hurt him is to poll on overall confidence in him, and here’s what CNN finds along those lines:

How much confidence do you have in the Obama administration to protect U.S. citizens from future acts of terrorism — a great deal, a moderate amount, not much or none at all?

A great deal 24%
A moderate amount 41%
Not much 19%
None at all 16%

These numbers are generally good for Obama, but not completely. Only one fourth has a “great deal” of confidence in Obama to protect them. That said, a big majority — 65% — has a great deal or a moderate amount of confidence.

And only 35% adopt the Cheney clan’s view that we should be curled up in the corner with our teeth chattering uncontrollably over lack of confidence in the Obama administration’s ability to protect us. That’s pretty remarkable, given that the Cheneys have been all over the airwaves making this case for months and months.

In other words, both Liz and the Dick have failed. The American people are in fact smarter than that.  In fact it's only Republicans who feel Obama has failed, independent voters and Democrats overwhelmingly approve of the way Obama's handled things so far.

So who out there in GOP pundit-land wants to explain to the Dick there and his daughter that every time they open their mouths, they remind Americans of how much of a failure the Republicans were at protecting this country?