I’m not sure how I missed seeing this before, but Public Policy Polling, based here in North Carolina, recently released the results of a poll that surveyed Americans about their views of Rupert Murdoch, the Congressional leadership, and God. (For real.)

According to their July 21 press release (link to PDF), 52% approve of God’s performance, 9% disapprove, and 40% were unsure. (As is typical of such breakdowns, the individual numbers don’t add to 100 because of rounding.)

The approval-disapproval-unsure rating for God’s handling of natural disasters was a bit worse, 50-13-37. On the other hand, opinion was a more positive 56-11-33 on God’s handling of animals, and a respectable 71-5-24 on the creation of the universe. At 71% approval, Divine Creation isn’t far short of the 77% Rotten Tomatoes gave the film Thor (albeit using a different rating system).

The same survey sample was markedly less impressed with Rupert Murdoch, whose approval numbers were just 12-49-39. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s pretty appalling that as many as 12% percent have a favorable view of Murdoch, but my guess is that a lot of them have him confused with some other Rupert, such as Rupert Giles (Buffy’s mentor on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or Rupert Grint (the actor who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films).

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats and Republicans are virtually tied in the terms of public contempt: 33-54-13 for the Democrats and 33-55-12 for the Republicans. I suppose they can take comfort in being viewed far more significantly favorably than Rupert Murdoch or the Smurfs movie.

by