Now isn’t this interesting. According to the Pew Research Center, “Partisan Gap in Obama Job Approval Widest in Modern Era.”

So it turns out Mr. Obama is the most polarizing President of the past four decades. According to Pew (which has Obama’s overall approval rating below 60 percent),

For all of his hopes about bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades. The 61-point partisan gap in opinions about Obama’s job performance is the result of a combination of high Democratic ratings for the president — 88% job approval among Democrats — and relatively low approval ratings among Republicans (27%).

Barack Obama made bipartisanship and healing the political divide that existed among us a core commitment of his presidency. We’re now about 10 weeks or so into the Age of Obama — and the country is more divided than it has been in modern times.

It became apparent quite early that bipartisanship was a fictional commitment for Barack Obama; shutting Republicans out of negotiations and promoting what ranks among the most left-wing domestic agendas in our lifetime was all the evidence some of us needed. Apparently most of the rest of the nation understands that as well.

Is a record-setting divide among Democrats and Republicans as such an early point in his presidency really the change we were told we could believe in?