Boy, Obama's approval rating just continues to take a beating, right? That storyline must be true because the press has been telling us about his “falling poll numbers” since late last summer.

From The New York Times, December 19, 2009 [emphasis added]:

After weeks of frustrating delays and falling poll numbers, Mr. Obama decided to take what he could get, declare victory and claim momentum on some of the administration's biggest priorities, even if the details did not always match the lofty vision that underlined them.

Washington Post, January 19:

On Wednesday one year will have passed since President Obama's inauguration. Much of the tidal wave of assessments has been negative: Falling poll numbers. Unfulfilled promises.

The Weekly Standard, April 26th edition:

The other factor in play is plummeting plummeting poll numbers... White House reporters tend to see falling poll numbers as a sign of incompetence, if not a character flaw.

So it must be true, right? Not quite.

-Obama's Gallup poll rating on Aug. 28, 2009: 50 percent.

-Obama's Gallup poll rating on April 24, 2010: 50 percent.

Look out below!!! Over the span of eight months, Obama's approval rating is exactly where it started. (And it never really budged.)

UPDATED: Right on cue! Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey today:

Obama won't top this [2010] ticket, and with his approval ratings heading steadily south, it's questionable whether he would help or hurt the national Democratic ticket anyway.'