Does anybody cherry-pick polling data quite like LA Times' Andrew Malcolm?

His latest comical contribution to the Obama Derangement Syndrome school of online journalism:

Americans not buying Obama's hopeful economy talk

Malcolm, a polling junkie who for some reasons didn't find time yesterday to blog Gallup's latest approval/disapproval numbers for Obama (51%/42%), thinks it's very big news that a recent Harris poll about how Americans feel about the economy found that they feel pretty much the same as they did several months ago; ambiguous and/or pessimistic. (Breaking news, right?)

Malcolm's translation: Bad news for Obama!

Except here's some context that Laura Bush's former flak studiously does not mention [emphasis added]:

[A]according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday, the American people still blame Mr. Bush more than President Obama for the state of the economy. The poll found that 42 percent of Americans blame Bush “a great deal” versus 26 percent who blame Mr. Obama. Another 33 percent blame Bush “a moderate amount” versus 24 percent for Obama.

For those keeping score at home, that's 75 percent of Americans who blame Bush for the weak economy, compared to 50 percent who assign some blame to Obama.

UPDATED: Malcolm thinks the Harris poll is such bad news for Obama because he's been so busy trying to convince Americans how strong the economy is. (Has he? Malcolm provides no evidence.) Malcolm puts down all “the encouraging economic talk coming out of the mouths of Barack Obama” and others in the administration.

So yes, it looks like Maclolm's just another media right-winger rooting for bad economic news; another Obama hater who, for purely political reasons, rejoices when Americans express fear and anxiety about their economic standing. For the ODS crowd, that kind of unsettling news brings giddy responses.

Honestly, what would Ronald Reagan think of today's strange brand of conservatism that celebrates bad news for America?