MSNBC‘s Evan Puschak looks at the theories about why the president’s approval has gone untouched despite government scandals.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Obama’s approval rating holding steady at 51%, the same as it was a month ago. Gallup shows the same trend: in their poll Obama has remained at 49%. A CNN poll has even shown a 2-point uptick since April, from 51% to 53%.

This doesn’t mean Americans don’t care about the scandals — quite the opposite. The Washington Post poll finds that 56% believe the IRS deliberately harassed Tea Party-related groups in their crackdown on illegitimate 501(c)(4)s. On Benghazi, 55% believe the administration is trying to cover up some facts about last year’s embassy attack. And on the Department of Justice’s secret collection of Associated Press phone records, 69% are at least somewhat concerned that the government is improperly intruding on freedom of the press.

Why does Obama go untouched while Americans fault the government on these scandals? There are a number of theories, some of which are borne out in the data. Looking at partisan divides on the poll questions asked above, the expected splits are apparent.

Read Evan Puschak’s entire piece at MSNBC.

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Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart says that what’s missing from most African-American critiques of President Obama is an appreciation for Republican resistance to his agenda.

Here we go again. President Obama’s critics in the African American community are hammering him for doing nothing for black people. Drawing my attention this time is “How the Obama Administration Talks to Black America” by Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic and “A President for Everyone, except Black People” by the Rev. Kevin Johnson that appeared last month in the Philadelphia Tribune.

While I understand where they are coming from, this thinking drives me crazy because the president’s detractors fail to take a 360-degree view of what they are demanding from him and ignore what he’s actually done.

Obama inspires deeply conflicted emotions in the African American community. We are beyond thrilled to have “one of us” in the White House. To see that man and his family represent us (all Americans, in this case) on the world stage never fails to stoke our pride. Yet, that pride is tempered by a simmering discontent. Many accuse Obama not only of ignoring the concerns of black people, but also of talking down to them. Let me take issue with the latter first.

Coates’s criticism emanates from Obama’s commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta …

Read Jonathan Capehart’s entire piece at the Washington Post.

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(The Root) — The tornado that devastated Oklahoma this week requires significant government aid to support recovery. This presents a unique problem for the Republican Party writ large — both in the state and in Washington, D.C. — as requests for aid, and approval thereof, undercut its meme of “self-reliance” and the dangers of “big government.”

Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, a regular critic of President Obama, is on record for having voted against the Hurricane Sandy relief bill last year, calling it a “slush fund.” Inhofe is now singing a different tune — claiming that Oklahoma relief is necessary. The fatal cognitive flaw in his analysis was best summed up by Salon’s Joan Walsh, who wrote, “Just as modern conservatism helped create categories of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor, we now apparently have ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ disasters.”

Inhofe isn’t alone in his hypocrisy. Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn said — fewer than 24 hours after the tornado that injured hundreds, left thousands homeless and killed at least 24 people, including children — that he would only support aid if it was “offset” by budget cuts. To be fair, Coburn is ideologically consistent, since he made similar arguments during Sandy, but he’s disingenuous for acting as though government budgets haven’t already experienced deep cuts.

Sequestration has forced massive spending cuts once thought unimaginable and has contributed to layoffs and furloughs of thousands of government workers. Offsets of the kind Coburn appears to be suggesting would have to come from things like food stamps, Medicaid or Head Start — programs aimed at helping the poor and needy children.

It is worth noting that both Inhofe and Coburn oppose raising tax revenue from the wealthy or corporations as a way to “offset” disaster aid. This is a curious position, given that Oklahoma has consistently remained one of the 10 poorest states for the past decade. Yet it is also a predictably “red” state — delivering seats to Republicans at both the state and federal levels.

Perhaps Oklahomans should begin rethinking their choice of representatives.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a vocal Tea Party sympathizer, recently rejected Medicaid expansion and federal funds to set up a state health care exchange in compliance with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Fallin cited overwhelming opposition from constituents and Tea Party groups.

But what she failed to address was the fact that Oklahoma suffers from a 16.2 percent poverty (pdf) rate — well above the national average of 13.8 percent. The poverty rate for children is worse, at 22 percent. At least a third of the state’s population — 1.3 million people — relies on food stamps, Medicaid or both, according to a 2011 report by Tulsa World.

Between 2002 and 2010, there was a 62 percent increase in the number of Oklahomans reliant on food stamps — and a 43 percent increase in Medicaid enrollment. But the recession of 2007 and 2008 wasn’t solely to blame. In fact, Oklahoma is one of the poorest states with the lowest unemployment rate — 6.2 percent, well below the national average. In other words, Oklahomans are the epitome of America’s working poor.

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