Doing my best to read the graph, the following Presidents had approval ratings as good as or better than Obama in their first year: Truman Eisenhower Kennedy Johnson

The following were lower but all at least 55%: Nixon Ford Reagan Clinton

The following are hard to read as they had rapid change in year 1: Carter
Bush 1 Bush 2

Couple interesting things to note about these ratings when you see the data for all Presidents:

First, all Presidents get a honeymoon of sorts. Ford and Clinton are the only modern Presidents who started below 60%, and they were at about 59 and about 56.

Almost every modern President ends with way lower approval ratings. Seems like once a Presidency starts, the bandwag0n door is sort of one way: an exit.

Clinton’s graph is the most interesting to me. As the modern President with the lowest starting approval rating, he is also, so far, the only modern President who had higher approval when he finished than when he started. Is this a referendum on BJs? I do not know.