Obama's Approval Rating

This morning I saw a new poll that says President Obama's approval rating is down a point from last week, to 43%. And on the radio, I heard a candidate for Congress out West say, "President Obama is the worst President in American history."

Is there no one in the middle or on the right who is "using their heads for anything but a hat rack," as my dad used to say???

Obama saved the auto industry. He passed a stimulus package. He passed financial reform. All of which helped save jobs and kept the economy from sinking into the abyss.

Obama passed a health care reform bill which will insure million of Americans now uninsured, and the bill has a chance -- a chance -- to slow the growth in individual health care costs.

Obama has brought the ill-conceived Iraqi war to an honorable conclusion with no promise that the centuries old Sunni-Shia conflicts will not return the country to the chaos it has known in the past under the strong man rule of the latest despot.

Obama has turned America's military focus to Afghanistan to stabilize the country while continuing to search for the 9/11 perpetrators who remain at large.

Obama has presided over a massive federal response to the worst environmental disaster in American history, and has forced BP to put $20B in a kitty to compensate Gulf Coast victims.

All this, in less than 18 months in office!!

And he is still willing to tolerate the belief of 24% of Americans that he is not a "real" citizen.

We do not deserve someone of Barack Obama's intellect, talent, patriotism, and commitment to strengthening America in all its diversity -- but we have him! Thank God, we have him.

So, why IS Obama's approval rating dropping to 43%?

Obama Defends Constitution

"Who, among my conservative Republican friends would disagree with the idea that government should play no role in decisions regarding one's choice of religious faith or place of pursuing that faith?"

I asked myself that question as President Obama spoke from the White House in reference to the controversy over whether or not a mosque should be permitted near the site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. I could not think of even one in the right wing of the GOP who would disagree with that. Surely, there is not one who calls himself an American who would disagree.

It is perhaps the most fundamental protection included in the US Constitution. If one believes in strict adherence to the Constitution, one cannot find fault in President Obama's remarks regarding the right of any faith to be practiced unfettered by restrictions of any sort from government at any level. Obama, after all, taught Constitutional law. He is not likely to make a mistake in its interpretation.

But I was wrong. there are plenty who, for purely partisan purposes, or perhaps because they have never read the Constitution, disagreed with the President. For them, I present the First Amendment of the US Constitution to consider:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.”

President Obama spoke as a citizen as well as our President because it is his duty to defend the Constitution. He spoke because he must speak against anyone who would twist the Constitution to one’s own political purpose. He spoke because we must stand for religious tolerance or nothing at all.

Some on the left believe his remarks amounted to a “gift to the Republican Party.” I disagree. You and I have an obligation to make sure his remarks do not have legs in a political sense. Sure, the Becks and Limburgers will have fun with his remarks in the short run. But they are wrong on this issue…and it is up to real patriots to tell them so.

Admittedly, the emotional scar in lower Manhattan is still quite visible, and deep. The wisest decision would have been to wait, delay the announcement of a decision on the mosque until cooler heads everywhere could prevail. I don't like the idea of the mosque so close to the WTC but I also recognize the principle of religious freedom upon which this country was founded.

The President is right. Very right. He could not state this sacred principle of our heritage more clearly; nor could I.