Nearly two-thirds of people questioned in the poll say they have a moderate or great deal of confidence in the administration to protect the public from future terrorist attacks, up 2 points from August. Thirty-five percent say they have not much or no confidence at all, down 1 point from August.I've become firmly convinced that hardly anybody in the media has a read on the actual center of public opinion. This isn't to say that there isn't some segment of the public that agrees with Dowd, but it's certainly not a majority of the country.
We hear a lot of talk these days about the changing media landscape but, truthfully, I think that what's really happening is that the media has gotten so disconnected from the public that most people don't even bother. It doesn't speak to them. If the national news media wants to have any future, they're going to have to figure out how to reconnect with the American public. Dumping useless blowhards like Dowd in favor of people who actually can understand what the public is thinking might help. At this point, though, I'm not sure that anybody but Barack Obama actually has a clue in terms of what the public wants to see from their leaders.
