For His Final Flex, Obama Proves He Is Literally the GOAT President

Obama is looking good on his way out of the White House, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.

January 18, 2017

President Barack Obama will enjoy one hell of a final flex as he leaves the White House. According to a new CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday, Obama's approval rating now stands at 60 percent.

The 60 percent peak gives Obama his highest approval rating since June of his first year in office, CNNreported Wednesday. Further, an impressive two-thirds (65 percent) of those polled agree that Obama's presidency was a success, with nearly half (49 percent) of them saying such success was due to Obama's "personal strengths."

And how do these numbers stack up against previous outgoing presidents? Obama is topped only by Bill Clinton in January 2001 (66 percent) and some guy named Ronald Reagan (64 percent) in January 1989, a year perhaps best remembered as the year Paul's Boutique was released.

Just for fun, let's also look back on the final approval rating of Obama's predecessor: George W. Bush, according to CBS News, vacated the White House while boasting an approval rating of just 22 percent.

Obama, who will hand the White House over to a reality TV personality on Friday, pleaded with the American people to keep hope alive in a recent open letter. "It was about you," Obama wrote of his administration's progress. "It is you, the American people, who have made the progress of the last eight years possible. It is you who will make our future progress possible. That, after all, is the story of America — a story of progress. However halting, however incomplete, however harshly challenged at each point on our journey — the story of America is a story of progress."