Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, look what the LA Times' Andrew Malcolm did again.

Malcolm is once again trying to compare President Obama's approval ratings with Sarah Palin's popularity ratings - despite being called out on this blog for doing that just two weeks ago - to claim there is only a 1-point gap in their favorability ratings.

"Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point" reads Malcolm's headline.

Problem is, it's not true.

Malcolm writes:

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, look what the pollsters just brought in.

A pair of new surveys revealing that President Obama is still declining and has hit a new low in job approval among Americans just 56 weeks after they elected him with a decided margin.

And -- wait for it -- Republican Sarah Palin is successfully selling a whole lot more than books out there on the road. Even among those not lining up in 10-degree weather to catch a glimpse of pretty much the only political celebrity the GOP has these days.

[...]

Obama's new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.

Regular Ticket readers will recall how in this space in late November we pointed out that Obama's closely watched job approval slide was coinciding with Palin's little-noticed rise in favorability. And it appeared they might cross somewhere in the 40s.

Well, ex-Sen. Obama, meet ex-Gov. Palin.

The new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Palin now at 46% favorable, just one point below her fellow basketball fan.

Malcolm is comparing Obama's Gallup approval number with Palin's CNN favorability rating.

In other words, Malcolm's picking more cherries than Cedric Ceballos.

In fact, CNN hasn't asked about Obama's favorability since October 16-18, but at that point, it was at 60%.

Nor has Gallup asked about Palin's favorability since October 1-4, but at that point, it was at 40%.

So we know as much as we did two weeks ago.

Which is that Palin is nowhere near as popular as Obama - and Andrew Malcolm is still a hack.