That breaks down a little differently when talking about race and political party affiliation.

About 47 percent of Democrats said America is going the wrong way, compared with 83 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of voters not affiliated with either major political party. Being Republican is claimed by 31.1 percent of Americans, while 34.3 percent consider themselves Democrats.

Among black voters, 63 percent believe the country is moving in the right direction, compared with 71 percent of white voters and 72 percent of all other voters.

Among “mainstream voters,” 80 percent think the country is going the wrong way; while 64 percent of “political class voters” (politicians, policy advisors, and those very aware of politics) believe the U.S. is heading in the right direction.

The poll, conducted by national telephone survey the week ending Feb. 27, demonstrated a 1-point rise in voter confidence compared with the previous week. However, 39 percent of those surveyed said they “strongly disapprove” of the president’s performance, a point higher than the previous month. According to Rasmussen, the president’s disapproval rating has wavered between 37 and 44 percent since July 2009.

What the polls numbers pointed to:

• Most voters (53 percent) want to see the national health care law repealed and are confident that repeal will happen. However, belief that repeal will be good for the economy has fallen to its lowest level ever, to 38 percent.
• Most voters (58 percent) prefer a partial federal government shutdown over maintaining current spending levels.
• Most voters(58 percent) fear political unrest in the Middle East might lead the U.S. into participating in another war.
• Most voters (58 percent) want to end foreign aid to all Arab nations in the Middle East (Egypt is the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid). A little over 50 percent favor continuing foreign aid to Israel.
• Most Americans (61 percent) say it is unlikely that all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the year, as planned.
• About 36 percent of voters rate the president’s handling of national security issues as “poor”; 40 percent give him good marks.

About 42 percent of all likely voters give Congress a poor grade: 37 percent of GOP voters said Congress is doing poorly, which is down from 55 percent a month ago. Only 13 percent of Democrats and 11 percent of independent voters rate Congress as good or excellent.

With that in mind, there’s plenty of room to criticize those lawmakers who, for political ends, mislead their own constituents with false messages about death panels, or death taxes, or pulling the plug on grandma. And yet, as Congress spins its wheels over the most pressing issues of the day — and each party blames the other for the impasse — Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein notes accurately this week that the public at large also bears a share of the blame.

“[T]he truth is that on many issues these days, the American people are badly confused,” Pearstein writes.

They want Wall Street to be reined in, but they’re dead set against more regulation.

They want everyone to have access to affordable health insurance, but they’re wary of expanding the role of government.

They want the government to do something to create jobs, but not if it involves spending more money.

They want the federal deficit brought under control, but not if it means cutting entitlement spending or raising taxes.

They want to do something about global warming, but not if it raises energy prices.

Translation: Americans seem well aware of the enormous problems facing the country, but few are willing to sacrifice their own skin to fix them — a charge that could also extend to lawmakers more inclined to do what’s popular than what’s best. The result is that the nation is headed off of a cliff. But, Pearlstein argues, the leadership vacuum also creates an opportunity for strong leaders to step in and fill it — a fitting message in the week that the country is (ostensibly) celebrating the lives of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

“The reason we remember them as great presidents is that they threw off the yoke of party loyalty, defied popular opinion and used the full weight of their office to do what had to be done,” Pearlstein writes. “They understood, or came to understand, an important truth: that only after they had demonstrated that they were willing to lead, and lead boldly, were the people willing to follow and drag Congress along with them.”

Anyone listening?

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother’s wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

“My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security,” Irfan said. “The only thing my brother said was, ‘Wow, the jets are right next to my window.’ I think they were remarking about safety.”

According to the article, five of the six adults in the party were of South Asian descent, and the men all wore beards while the women wore traditional headscarves. Kashif Irfan is an anesthesiologist and his brother, Atif, is a lawyer. Both were born in Detroit and currently live in Alexandria, Va. They said they suspected they were profiled because of their appearance, which AirTran disputed.

“At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn’t have made on the airplane, and other people heard them,” [AirTran spokesman Tad] Hutcheson said. “Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions.”

I realize that many people in this country want airlines to target Muslims for additional security screening, which, even if you agree with that idea, this seems a bit excessive. I’m not sure this approaches the level of impropriety of, say, someone joking that he had a bomb in their bag at the ticket counter.

More importantly, if you don’t agree with targeting travelers based on race, think about why. If a white person made a similar comment, it is very unlikely that anyone would even take notice. And that’s the point: If it was inappropriate for a Muslim, then it would also be inappropriate if someone like, say, myself said the same thing.

At the very least, the airline could have rebooked them on another flight after they were cleared.

That’s because I’ve been away from “home” for a long time now. I went to one of those fancy schools that was mocked last night. I’ve lived in Chicago and New York and Washington. I’ve traveled the world. But I’ve always said I’m an Ohio boy at heart. Or so I thought.

Now, I don’t know if I want to cling to that anymore. Palin would like you to believe that we’re not supposed to escape our small-town upbringings. That’s a fine notion, but it made me think about what we’re supposed to do. I’ve always said that I left Ohio not out of a need for some great escape from small-town life, but because the work I wanted to do was elsewhere.

I suspect that Sen. Barack Obama felt somewhat the same way when he left Hawaii for Columbia University and then Harvard Law. But Palin would make you believe there’s something wrong with that. It’s playing the class card and it’s simply wrong.

It’s using this idea of false authenticity to a place, to reject what our great founders envisioned as the forward movement in the American experiment — to say because someone chose not to stay in their humble beginnings he shouldn’t be trusted.

There are many times when I’m proud to say where I’m from. But Palin cheapened that narrative and millions like it last night. Today, I’ll just say that I live in Washington — with no backstory. And leave it at that.