WHEE!!! WHEE!!! THE PUBLIC IS ABANDONING OBAMA!!! (Not.)

Last night and earlier today, when the Boston Herald, Jules Crittenden, and a passel of righty bloggers were telling us OMG OMG Obama's honeymoon is over he's dropped to 50% in the new Zogby poll!!!!, somehow they neglected to mention what Zogby himself helpfully told when he finally posted his write-up of the poll (emphasis mine):

Under our long-standing measure of job performance (excellent, good, fair, poor), Obama's positive ratings have dipped just below 50%. Likely voters choosing excellent or good fell three points from another Zogby Interactive poll concluded on March 5, going from 52% to 49% excellent or good; while 11% said fair and 38% poor.

In other words, Zogby isn't suddenly claiming that Obama's not popular -- Zogby is always claiming that Obama's not popular. Zogby -- unlike just about every other pollster in America -- was claiming that Obama wasn't popular weeks ago. His previous (anomalous) number was only 52%.

So it's not just that (as Nate Silver explains) Zogby's methodology is suspect, or that (as new polls from Gallup and CBS make clear) this new Zogby poll is a huge outlier -- it's that Zogby's been an outlier all along.

But why would wingnuts let something like the truth prevent them from disingenuously announcing a drop in popularity that wasn't a drop at all?