U.S. Military support for the President sinks to all-time low.

By Robert Laurie —— Bio and Archives December 23, 2014

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While there are a couple of polls floating around that suggest Barack Obama has - at least with members of his own party - enjoyed a slight popularity resurgence since the midterms, the overall trend remains the same. His policies and approval ratings remain underwater. They've been that way for a long time, and the election results bear out the numbers.

However, even in the worst polls of the general populace, Obama lands at around 39%-41%. Unfortunately, there's one place where he falls far, far short of even that low bar. According to a new service published by the Military Times, the President's approval among active duty military members has plummeted to a disastrous all-time low. U.S. Military support for the President sinks to all-time low. That's right. Only 15 percent of those currently in uniform think that their boss is doing a good job. That's a precipitous drop of 13 percent in one year. Interestingly, the displeasure isn't entirely about the things you might expect. As The Hill reports:

But Obama’s decline comes despite service members largely backing his approach to many issues currently facing the military. Only 3 in 10 service members think the U.S. should send a large force of combat troops to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — something the White House has ruled out. On social issues, the military is also coming to embrace the president’s policies. The percentage of those who believe the military should exclude women from combat jobs has fallen from 43 percent to 28 percent over the past two years. Similarly, the percentage of those who say openly gay people should be allowed to serve in the military now stands at 60 percent — up from 35 percent in Obama’s first year in office.

So, what's the problem? For the most part, it's money.

The frustration appears at least in part due to the reductions in pay increases and benefits under sequestration, with Congress in 2014 approving the smallest pay raise since the military became all volunteer. While in 2009, 87 percent of service members rated their pay and allowance as good or excellent, today, just 44 percent do so. The percentage who say their overall quality of life is “good or excellent” has fallen from 91 percent to 56 percent over that period, and 7 in 10 believe their quality of life will decline in the coming years.

Frankly, it's hard to disagree with this. Asking our young men and women to risk their lives in exchange for an unlivable wage is a disgrace. However, before progressives start getting too excited about blaming the sequester on Republicans, they might want to take a moment and remember. As Bob Woodward famously reported, the sequester was concocted by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. It was approved by Obama, sent off to Congress for passage, and Obama signed it into law. So if it's all about the sequester, it looks like blame has landed squarely where it belongs. Frankly, we're sure the Obama admin's VA scandal didn't help. Nor did the plan to send the military to fight Ebola. Ditto for the President's decision to undermine all of the work that military has done over the past few years in Iraq and Afghanistan by announcing premature pullouts. ....Or blaming a YouTube video. ....Oh, and turning marines into umbrella holders probably wasn't a great idea either. Hmmmm.... Maybe there's a pattern here.... It couldn't be that the military has noticed a pattern with this President, could it?