Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter falsely claimed during the April 30 edition of Fox News' Hannity that President Obama is "actually the second least popular president, 100 days in, we've had in 40 years." As Media Matters for America recently documented, this falsehood, which has made its way from a blog post to Fox News and The Washington Times, is based on an apples-to-oranges comparison between an April 20-21 Gallup poll question that asked respondents to "rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as president so far -- excellent, good, just okay, poor, or terrible," and the historical results of the traditional Gallup approval rating poll question that simply asked whether respondents "approve" or "disapprove" of the president's performance. Based on its traditional presidential approval poll question, Gallup itself recently reported that Obama's average approval rating for the first quarter of his first year in office is the highest of any president since 1969 other than Jimmy Carter, and Obama's most recent weekly average approval rating is higher than the April approval ratings of every first-term president since 1969 other than Ronald Reagan.
SEAN HANNITY (host): What do you say -- how -- we all know how this country's changed. I've given my opinion. What do you make of the 100 days of Barack Obama?
COULTER: Well, it was nice that he got a dog for his children and the vice president, so I'd put that in the plus column. And the negative column, I think we're about to see -- I mean, it did -- I linked to this on my Web page. He's actually the second least popular president, 100 days in, we've had in 40 years -- something else the mainstream media seems to be portraying in a different way. I mean, they're all pretty close. But 100 days, you haven't really seen the effects of his policies. I don't see any of the fundamentals changing in the economy. We ought to be going --
HANNITY: Oh, I do.
COULTER: -- through a bad time. And then --
HANNITY: Oh, wait a minute, Ann.
COULTER: -- oh, yeah. No -- well --
HANNITY: Oh, he's bankrupting the country. You know, we are --
COULTER: No, I know. But that the effects of that won't be felt for a while. And right now, to the extent Americans still have a favorable opinion of him, I think it has a lot to do just with the irrepressible optimism of Americans. Things aren't going to get better. They will see their 401ks not -- not getting any better and this could be a good opportunity for Republicans.
HANNITY: Weaken our defenses -- America, the socialist utiopia of France. All right. Ann Coulter good to see you. Thanks for being with us.
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