Following on what Dan and Jonah had to say on the subject, the editors weigh in on the president’s unpopularity, particularly as it compares to President Reagan’s early poll numbers:

There is a chart currently making the rounds that shows President Reagan’s approval ratings during his first two years in office overlaid upon President Obama’s. The trend lines nearly overlap. Liberal commentators are using the chart to argue that Obama’s unpopularity is almost entirely attributable to the weak economy and thus comparable to that of Reagan, who also inherited a recession. If the economy improves, the argument goes, then Obama’s approval ratings will bounce back just as Reagan’s did. Liberals add that Obama faces a more difficult task than Reagan did because he inherited a nastier recession. Some conservatives are taking issue with this, arguing that Obama has made his task much more difficult by going on a government spending spree, whereas Reagan cut taxes to stimulate growth.
Both arguments miss the important ways in which the recessions the two men inherited are similar and the important ways in which their approaches differed. Both men faced seemingly intractable economic problems with no easy solution, but Reagan understood that curing the nation’s debilitating inflation was going to involve a good deal of short-term economic pain and political unpopularity, and he was prepared to endure that. By contrast, Obama has done everything in his power to avoid painful corrections — at great cost to future taxpayers. It is increasingly evident that his policies have merely put off these corrections or dragged them out, and that we have not avoided them at all. Reagan’s willingness to accept painful and unpopular but necessary economic adjustments — and Obama’s lack of the same fortitude — is the essence of what separates the two men.

Read the rest here.