And I seem to recall predicting it might last six months. 

Have you seen the latest polls ?

I wish there were someone I could see as a potential leader but there really seems to be a dearth.  Now more than ever that old Hollywood adage (was it William Goldman who coined the phrase?) "Nobody knows anything" seems accurate.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Jordan .

I think the lower poll ratings reflect more on congress than Obama individually. I get the sense people are fed up with the congress on both sides of the ales right now. Obama simply can't get control of the congress. This worries even Obama supporters like myself because they are screwing up Obama's initiatives pretty badly right now. I give Bush credit for controlling his partisan congress although it untimely lost them control.

Republicans really shouldn't concern themselves over these poll numbers and instead worry about finding an intelligent, charismatic, and sane leader for the party. 2012 isn't that far away and they really have nothing as far as a leader. The right comes across as simply complainers with no ideas. (Sound familier to early 2000's democrats?) Ousting an incumbent president is difficult. What will ultimately help Obama is a strong stock market if it continues which I think it will. People don't want change when the market is strong.

It's easy right now for republicans to simply fall into lazy John Kerry campaign mode and assume low poll ratings will carry them to a win. My prediction (I know its early) but Obama will be thanking Bernanke for a second term. Should be an interesting build up to 2012!!!

R_Flagg

Obama does have time on his side at this point. The economy will probably improve by 2011 so I am fully expecting Obama to have a second term already.

Jordan .

HaHa, yeah I guess its to early for 2012 talk. I expect to see some republicans pick up seats in congress in 2010. Maybe 2014 will have a republican congress and democrat president and all will be right in the world again ;)

R_Flagg

Jordan .

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

HaHa Susan. You know deep down you would want complete power. ;) It's human nature. It's not like you're gonna vote for Obama to keep the balance of power!  Would you?

 R_Flagg

Jordan .

hopefully America will say no.

Bleep you, & bleep the establishment, and bleep all of you who are trying to make me part of the unestablished establishment.

 Sorry I missed this thread's latest comments. 

I DID vote for Obama.  

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

This really didn't take long, did it? Can Obama regain his footing or is everything all tumbling down so soon?

From the NYT (THE NEW YORK TIMES, I said) 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Does anyone buy this so called independent movement? Independent isn't a party. Is it just a concept from people who want to elect someone who believes every single thing they do? Something that will never happen. Most independents have either a right or left wing philosophy at heart. Of course, if you differ on opinion in just one issue you will be labeled left wing socialist or right wing fascist by the social masses in this country, even if you claim to be in the "middle"

I actually would like to see Obama get a little George W on this congress and push legislation through on health care without regard to what critics think. He may lose poll numbers but at least he would do what he promised. George Bush never let congress, critics, polls, or the law get in his way.

Now Obama is teaching socialism to our kids? Where has everything gone so wrong?!?! It's all falling apart.

R_Flagg

It's  older almost than obama. The Public School system with Wiki textbooks.

Anyway, I'm going to defer to an invalid and his take on the creepy factor of the Pied Piper.

Most politicians aren't going to ram legislation through. Bush was rarity in that case (and in almost all cases he had more support than what Obama has right now for health care).

Obama pushing health care has come at the wrong time. Bad economy, bad stimulus package, rising unemployment, dropping govt revenue does not make it easy to pass health care. He's already spent his political capital - he didn't have as much as he thought/hoped he had when he walked into the WH in Jan.

Jordan .

I think it's REALLY hard to be the President of the USA.  Maybe even harder to do now that at any time including the first time around, during the Civil War, the Great Depression or WWII.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Still falling...

Obama disapproval on health care up to 52 percent

With his health revamp moving slowly and unemployment edging ever higher, Obama's overall approval rating has also suffered a blow. The survey showed that 49 percent now disapprove of how he is handling his job as president, up from 42 percent who disapproved in July.

The grade people give Obama on health care also has worsened since July, when just 43 percent disapproved of his work on the issue.

The poll underscores how the president has struggled to win public support to reshape the nation's $2.5 trillion health care system and to put the brakes on a deep recession.

Forty-nine percent say they oppose the health overhaul plans being considered by Congress, compared to just 34 percent who favor them.

People are about evenly split over what lawmakers should do now on health care: About four in 10 say they should keep trying to pass a bill this year while about the same number say they should start over again.

Significantly, though, only about two in 10 say the health care system should be left as is.

There is a clear public desire for a bipartisan approach on the issue. Eight in 10 say it's important that any plan that passes Congress should have the support of both parties, while two-thirds want Obama and Democrats to try winning support from Republicans, who with few exceptions have opposed the Democratic drive.

Obama's marks are also poor on the economy, with 52 percent saying they disapprove of how he's handled that issue.

A similar number disapprove of his handling of taxes, some of which may rise to help finance his health overhaul. And 56 percent dislike his handling of the budget deficit, which has skyrocketed under the costs of the financial bailouts and a recession that has caused sinking federal revenues.

The survey of 1,001 adults with cell and landline telephones was conducted from Sept. 3-8. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

...or to put it another way (since a pitcher is worth how many words?), check out this graph of the Drastic Approval Slide since January, a few short months ago.  Trend or temporary anomaly?

Now it's not just the President  who is disapproved of.  These days, it's hard to think of too many individuals in any walk of life  that deserve high approval ratings.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

(yes, i know it's from a GOP site, but the numbers, I'm assuming are correct and can be checked at the Bureau of Labor Stats website)

there's a point in which you can't blame previous administration for your woes. I think we're at that point.

And CNN had an interesting poll too this week.

Jordan .

Just a thought. i wonder what Obama's approval rating will be in about 2019 if Obamacare and or Cap and Tax pass? Being objective here the best thing for Obama's place in history will indeed depend on these items and the Afgan situation. If Obamacare and Cap and Tax are defeated and he can navigate Afghanistan and maintain domestic safety from enemies, he could be reasonable highly regarded.

Even that is  if the budget busting -even without O care and C & T doesn't sink the USA ship with the weakened/lost dollar as the world's reserve currency and permanent higher unemployment rates and inflation-even hyper inflation as a result of the ineffective wastful stimulous bill(s) and govt. takeover of autos, and a repeat -which is happening already- of Fed loan programs to shaky mortgagors e.g. 3% down payment on home loans!! That kind of crap is how we got here! 

I am truly sorry to say that everything, every approach Obama is taking seems wrong to me.  

Huckabee is looking good to me for 2012. He gets the Constitution and he was probably incorrectly painted as somewhat of a big spending Republican for the 2008 primaries..

Let me post an opinion piece concerning  The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers.

Dismantling America

by Thomas Sowell

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers-- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones ?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than  like anything American.

How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most , to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government-- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year-- each bill more than a thousand pages long-- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question-- and the biggest question for this generation.

********************************************************

What do you think? Has the author made some valid points ? Is he completely off base ?

 

Yes- pretty much off base.

 The one thing I don't get is the White House's attention to Fox News/ Rush Limbaugh. i personally think the white house is just posturing to seem more liberal than they really are to 1) re-energize the left for health care reform and 2) distract the anti-war wing of the left re: afghanistan.  Maybe also to inflame the right to make it less likely that more centrist republicans can regain their footing in the GOP.  Most of what's been going on is rhetoric, although things like spurning Fox interviews, etc seem sketchy to me re: free speech and press.

The rest of the piece is pretty laughable scare piece imho. 

Bio, your analysis of the white house v. Fox may well be correct. I am glad you see the free speech threat it represents.

Take care man.

Jordan .