Washington Whispers: “President Obama’s slow ride down Gallup’s daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history.”

Of course, there is little significance to approval numbers and re-election this far out, so the comparison is interesting but meaningless.

Jonathan Martin recommends:

Happy Days Are Here Again : The 1932 Democratic Convention, the Emergence of FDR–and How America Was Changed Forever by Steven Neal.

A reviewer for the official National Park Service bookstore at Ford’s Theatre has recommended that Bill O’Reilly’s bestselling new book about the Lincoln assassination, Killing Lincoln, not be sold at the historic site “because of the lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication,” according to Salon.

Washington Post: “The sales of Killing Lincoln attest to the fact that TV celebrity and strong storytelling trump accuracy. Since its publication the book has been riding at the top of the bestseller list, and soon after its release O’Reilly signed a contract to write two more books, one of which will be another presidential history.”

The Passage of Power, the fourth of Robert A. Caro’s Lyndon Johnson books is coming out in May, the AP reports.

And a fifth volume will be written for what was supposed to be a three-, then four-part series.

A new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll finds Americans would choose Ronald Reagan over Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 36% to 29%, as the past president they would want in the White House in these trying times.

Thomas Jefferson came in third place with 14% from a list of five past presidents that also includes Harry Truman at 8% and William Henry Harrison at 1%.

Just published: FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 by David M. Jordan.

“A fast-moving, blow-by-blow account of the often neglected wartime
campaign that pitted Franklin Delano Roosevelt against
Republican Thomas E. Dewey, with pollsters divided to
the very end. For political junkies there is suspense,
backroom dealing, and surprises about both presidential and
vice-presidential nominations, as well as where the
parties would stand on the future both at home and
abroad.”