The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The good: After months of back-and-forth bickering between the Fox News Channel and the Obama Administration, the President granted an interview to the network while in China.  Fox has been all but blocked out from access to the President over the last several months.  Coming one day after the announcement that White House Communications Director Anita Dunn was stepping down, it is only good to see an airing – if not opening – of dialogue between groups that often do not always agree.

The bad: A new Associated Press-GfK poll  released this week shows the American people are more pessimistic about the direction of the United States than they were only a month ago.  While Obama shows an overall approval rating of 54 percent, he now faces 56 percent of the country believing that the nation is on the wrong track .  The poll reflects an upward trend from the 51 percent on the wrong track result last month and is not a positive sign.

The ugly: A report issued last Friday by the Department of Labor showed the country is encountering the worst unemployment in more than 26 years. With an unemployment rate of 10.2 percent nearly 190,000 jobs were lost last month alone.  While reports are coming through that the economy has turned the corner, it still is not reflected in the jobs reports.  Let’s hope the good news at the macro level shifts to good news as the job level – soon.

Kevin Fickenscher, MD

The views and opinions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Dell Services or its affiliates.