The Deseret News' Overt Bias

John McCain won Utah 62-34%. This is not good for Democrats, but as noted earlier, it is an improvement. So about one third of Utahns chose Pres. Obama. About four months later, and about two months after he took office, 51% of Utahns now approve of the job Pres. Obama is doing. They are not apples to apples, but that is 17% increase for Obama in Utah.

I would have guessed, in a state that has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, and it has never really been close in that time, that Pres. Obama would be happy with a 34% approval rating in Utah. It would have really seemed greedy to ask for much more than 40%. But here is a poll that shows over half of Utahns approve the job he is doing.

In contrast, Pres. Obama garnered 53% of the popular vote nationwide and has an approval rating hovering around 60%, which is about a 7% increase. So his rise in approval in Utah outpaces the country as a whole, which of course has a lot to do with how low he started in Utah.

So how does the Deseret News report this fairly astonishing news?

Maybe it's the sign of the times, or just greater partisanship today than in 2001, but Democratic President Barack Obama starts his presidency with a much lower job approval rating among Utahns than did Republican George W. Bush eight years ago.

Okay. Comparing the favorability of a conservative president to a liberal president in arguably the most conservative state in the country seems ridiculous, especially the numbers of the conservative president before he became the most unpopular president since Truman (that includes Nixon!) because of his disastrous policies which knee-capped the economy and our foreign policy. But, okay, let's see where they're going with this.

A new poll for the Deseret News and KSL-TV by Dan Jones & Associates finds that only 51 percent of Utahns approve of the job Obama is doing.

Only? A liberal democrat has over 50% approval in ultra-conservative Utah and DNews says only? This is crazy.

And half of all Utahns don't like the Obama/Congress measures to stimulate the economy, Jones found.

But half do! That is amazing, why report it so negatively? And this isn't just some throw-away issue, this is the defining issue of his presidency and by far the most important issue to the nation. After some down-played caveats that can't be that important to the analysis like, Utah is ultra-conservative, Obama did do better than Kerry, and other unimportant things:

Even so, only 60 percent of Salt Lake County residents approve of the job Obama is doing, Jones found in a survey conducted last week of 400 adults statewide.

ONLY?! Salt Lake County barely, just barely, went for Pres. Obama over McCain. The suburbs, which make up the large majority of the county, are still conservative. Pres. Obama's job approval rating in Utah's most populous and influential county are affirmatively extremely impressive, particularly given the dynamics, and the DNews trips all over itself to make sure to down-play it as much as possible. This is not journalism.

Of course, Obama is facing tougher economic times than did Bush eight years ago — a recession the worst since the Great Depression with rising unemployment, business failures and home foreclosures.

But that doesn't really matter, does it?

Obama's 51 percent approval rating in Utah is about 10 percentage points below his approval ratings found in national surveys conducted over the last several weeks, according to pollster.com.

That's more like it. Let's make absolute sure to cast this in the most negative light possible. How about Congress?

And Utah's 34 percent approval rating for Congress also is a lower number than measured nationally. Pollster.com reports a 39 percent congressional approval rating recorded nationally in a March 5 Gallup poll, and a 36 percent approval rating in a National Public Radio survey earlier this month.

Gasp! A full 2% lower number? From the most conservative state in the country? Shouldn't we, instead of touting how low these numbers are, actually show surprise at how high they are? This is bush league reporting that does not reflect the realities of Utah at all. It shows no critically thinking. It is clearly just written to further the DNews' conservative agenda and it is pathetic.