Speaker Nancy Pelosi denied today that she had been told that waterboarding or other illegal interrogation methods were being used on terrorist detainees.

"We were not, I repeat, we were not told that waterboarding or any of these other interrogation methods were used. What they did tell us was they had some legislative counsel opinions," Pelosi said at an afternoon press conference. "And if and when they would be used, they would brief Congress at that time."

Earlier in the day, House Minority Leader John Boehner indicated his opposition to congressional investigations into past interrogation tactics because no new information would be learned. Congressional leaders had been regularly briefed, he said.

"I don't see that we're going to learn anything that clearly members, in a bipartisan way -- the congressional leaders -- didn't already know about these techniques," Boehner said. "Yesterday I saw a partial list of a number of members in the House and Senate -- Democrats and Republicans -- who were briefed on these interrogation methods and not a word was raised at the time. Not one word."

“I think this is the greatest assault on democracy and freedom that I've ever seen in Congress,”- Rep. John Shimkus, referring to the Obama administration's cap-and-trade energy plan.

Double take. Joe Biden is less popular than Dick Cheney. Well, in the first half year of the first term that is.

A slim 51 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Vice President Biden. Cheney was at 58 percent in July 2001. Al Gore, 55 percent in April 1993. The veep comparison comes courtesy of the Pew Research Center's latest report.

The public's favorable take on Biden declined 12 percentage points since January. And don't blame the GOP. Democrats' favorable view fell from 87 to 76 percent. Independents' view fell from 58 to 46 percent.

In time, it will likely prove no challenge for Biden to stay ahead of Cheney. Less than a third of Americans held a favorable view of Cheney when he left office in January.

Recently on RealClearPolitics:

-    Obama's 100 Days: Average Approval & Ultra-Polarizing

-    The Illusions of Obama's Idealism Abroad

-    Libertine Economics and the GOP's Identity Crisis

Barack Obama will mark his first 100 days a significantly more popular president than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, based on a Pew Research Center report out Thursday morning.

Seventy-three percent of voters hold a favorable opinion of Obama, by Pew's measure, exceeding Clinton or Bush by more than 10 percentage points at the close of their 100th day in office.

Favorability differs from job approval. Pew finds that Obama's overall approval rating is 63 percent, matching Gallup's tracking.

Favorability measures an affirmative and positive view of a president, rather than a statement of consent or support for how a president is conducting his job. Approval rating remains the benchmark. It gets to the heart of a vote and public mandate. And based upon Gallup's long history of polling, as I wrote today, Obama's average 100-day approval rating is likely to fall right in the middle of the 10 presidents who preceded him.

Both Pew and Gallup data show Obama as a historically polarizing figure. This is fundamentally because Obama has low GOP support and high Democratic support. That Democratic support, combined with a strong majority of independents backing, explains in part why Obama has a high favorability rating.

Bill Clinton began his presidency with a higher favorability rating than approval. The Monica Lewinsky Scandal changed that. In Clinton's last three years his approval exceeded his favorability. The public was, broadly speaking, conveying that they did not condone the president's conduct but viewed that conduct as unrelated to his job. The decline of favorability can indicate a sense of public disappointment, as in Clinton's case.

Most Americans today say that Obama has fulfilled their expectations. Clinton and Bush also met most voters expectations by day 100.

Pew's numbers also show Obama with strong majorities approving of his handling of the economy, terrorism and foreign policy. But only half of Americans approve of Obama's handling of health care policy, tax policy and the budget deficit.

In a starker warning sign for this president, only 45 percent of independents approve of Obama's management of tax and budget issues. This explains, in part, why the GOP has focused the crux of its opposition on these latter two issues. Only 38 percent of Americans with incomes of at least $75,000 annually also approve of Obama's handling of the budget deficit.

The PPP poll of Colorado that Tom cites to is significant because newly-minted Senator Michael Bennet is running about even with his largely-unknown GOP opponents.  Bennet is similarly unknown, so he can't be considered in Dodd/Bunning territory, but he can't be thrilled with the numbers either.

Potentially more significant is the fact that Obama's numbers, while healthy nationwide, are a fairly anemic 49/45 in this poll of "voters."*  Checking the breakdowns against last year's exit polls from Colorado, there's nothing particularly "off."  Independents appear to be undersampled, but since they split 50/50, that should come out in the wash.  Colorado was slightly more Democratic than the nation as a whole in 2008, so its somewhat surprising to see him 26 points below his national average of +30 so soon.

Colorado and the Mountain West were widely believed to have trended away from the Republicans in the 2000s out of disenchantment with President Bush's social conservatism.  But the million dollar question was always how these libertarian-ish voters would deal with a resurgance of economic popuism in the Democratic party.  If this poll proves to be something other than an outlier, it could spell trouble for the large crop of new Democrats the state has elected since 2004.

*While Obama performs well in polls of "adults," his numbers among registered voters or likely voters are usually a few points lower than the national average.

For an administration that really wants to make friends and rebuild America's image in the world, Janet Napolitano is doing a really good job of pissing off our friends to the North.

Don Martin of the National Post delivers a harsh verdict this morning:

The most worrisome American official confronting Canada today is a former Arizona governor who thinks the U.S. northern border, which she's only flown over and never actually crossed on the ground, is a security threat on par with the drug-running, immigrant-smuggling, terrorist-sneaking border wall with Mexico.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is moving unapologetically forward on beefed-up border staffing and enhanced documentation requirements that will make Canadians and travelling Americans yearn for the security paranoia of the George W. Bush administration.

(more...)

PPP is out with a poll of the Colorado Senate race which finds Democrat Michael Bennet, who replaced Ken Salazar just four months ago, with a 34% approval rating. Forty one percent disapprove of the job Bennet is doing as Senator thus far.

The good news for Bennet, however, is that despite his low approval rating he currently holds leads three of the four potential Republican challengers in hypothetical general election match ups:

Bennet (D) 39
Frazier (R) 35

Bennet (D) 40
Buck (R) 34

Bennet (D) 41
Penry (R) 34

Bennet trails only former Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez, and only by a point:

Bennet (D) 42
Beauprez (R) 43

So says a new poll by a Miami-based Democratic polling firm reported in today's Miami Herald. 64% say they support Obama's move to lift travel restrictions and ease remittances to Cub, while only 27% opposed the shift.

More from the Herald article:

''There would have been tremendous opposition to any kind of loosening of sanctions six or 10 years ago,'' Amandi said. ``This represents a 180-degree change, a realization that after 50 years nothing has been done to bring liberty to Cuba.''

Mauricio Claver Carone, a leading pro-embargo lobbyist, noted, however, that the three Miami Republican members of Congress who back hard-line sanctions -- and criticized Obama for lifting the remittance cap entirely -- were re-elected in November even as Obama garnered an estimated 35 percent of the Cuban-American vote in South Florida.

''The Cuban-American members of Congress who are considered hard-liners outperformed both presidential candidates in South Florida in every precinct,'' Claver-Carone said. ``Which means that there are people who voted for Barack Obama and voted for these pro-embargo stalwarts. These polls are almost nonsensical.''

The poll surveyed 400 Cuban-Americans in Florida and New Jersey and "other states" on April 15-16 with a margin of error of +/-5.0%.

Here's an excerpt from the press gaggle aboard Air Force One earlier today as the President was en route to an Earth Day event in Iowa. Gibbs was once again peppered with questions about Obama's statement yesterday opening the door to a commission to prosecute Bush administration officials over devising interrrogation procedures:

Q    Any clarity from yesterday on the President's position on torture memos, and any reaction to Dennis Blair's memo that appeared in papers today?

MR. GIBBS:  Well, on the first question, what exactly -- what clarity are you looking for?

Q    We're looking -- you said you were going to talk to -- get back to us with clarity on the President's remarks.

MR. GIBBS:  Well, I think what -- maybe what I wasn't clear about yesterday and -- because what was said yesterday was exactly what the President has said for not just the past week, as we've dealt with these OLC memos, but for the past many months.  Let's just go through the whole sort of decision in general.

The President, at the beginning of his administration, banned the use of enhanced interrogation techniques because he believed they were -- they opposed our values and, on balance, they made the country less safe.  As part of an ongoing legal proceeding, the President released these memos because there was no legal justification for continuing to keep them classified; that a lot of the information that was contained in the memos, that the types of techniques were in the public domain.

So that is part of the backdrop of where we are.  The President also believes that the memos and their release should be a moment for us to reflect, but not a moment for retribution. The President, as he said yesterday, has a lot on his plate and he believes that our focus looking forward should be on the crises that we have in the bank industry, in unemployment, the financial sector, and as he and the Attorney General have said, that while no one is above the law, those that worked within the four corners of the legal advice they were given, and those that acted in good faith based on the advice they were provided should not be subject to interrogation.

That's what the President said -- that's what the President has said all along.

Q    Should not be subject to what?

MR. GIBBS:  Should not be subject to prosecution.

Q    The President said yesterday that he wanted to ensure that if there was any kind of investigation, politics were not part of the equation.  Given that, would he be supportive at some point appointing a special prosecutor to look into these Bush-era officials?

MR. GIBBS:  Well, look, I think this goes into the -- in some ways, the non-clarity of yesterday.  Let me use an example. If you go in the back of the plane, Air Force One, and spray-paint the walls and smoke in the bathroom, the President isn't going to determine whether you broke the law; a legal official is going to determine whether you broke the law.  That's the determination that will be made in any instance whereby anybody knowingly breaks the law.

Q    But due to the fact that his AG, Eric Holder, is a political appointee, would it not be less political to have a prosecutor to look into these issues?

MR. GIBBS:  I think that the lawyers that are involved are plenty capable of determining whether any law has been broken.  I want to stress that that determination is not going to be made by the President, or the Vice President, or anybody that works in the White House, because that's why many, many, many, many moons ago we created a Department of Justice.