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.

The truth, nothing but the truth...

In all my years of working in the Washington DC environment, I have never read a more accurate statement than the one made today by Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) in the Washington Post:

"Unfortunately, I think some, and I hate to say this, but some want Obama to fail, period.  And unfortunately, Obama's failure would be the country's failure.  In a way, some of them are rooting against the country.  They want political power."  -- Sen Conrad (D-ND)

Americans who live beyond the Potomac and enjoy watching Fox News all day should read that quote every morning and ask this question: Where is the real threat to this nation's future?

GOP Tagged by President Wilson

While searching for a quote today, I stumbled across the following by President Woodrow Wilson that perfectly describes the GOP difficulty in persuading voters they should be trusted to handle the complex problems of the 21st century:

"Conservatism is the policy of make no change and consult your grandmother when in doubt."
Well said by our 28th President in 1914. In the ensuing 96 years, GOP policy has never been explained more eloquently.

Palin invents word 'refudiate,' compares herself to Shakespeare

Sarah Palin apparently does not know that "refudiate" is not in the English language.


44-Palin invents word 'refudiate,' compares herself to Shakespeare

What did you expect?

Barack Obama promised change if he was elected. So, when he got to Washington, he passed a health care reform bill (which people said they wanted), he passed a financial reform bill (which people said was needed to keep Wall Street from repeating its manipulation of the financial markets), he passed a stimulus bill to keep the country from falling into an economic abyss (which it would have). Obama said the real battle against terrorism started in Afghanistan and America needed to finish the job there to protect its national security interest. And so he stayed (as most Repubs wanted him to) but he has made clear it is not an open ended commitment. Nor can it be. Some President must display the leadership necessary to extract us at the right time. Is there anyone better prepared to do that than this President? It certainly would not be John McCain or Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee.

So why don’t the polls show his approval ratings at a sky high level?

Because the pundits are yelling and screaming that nothing he has done has made a positive difference, and as if to make all their points with one reference, they conclude by reminding the electorate that the “unemployment rate is still 9.5% and Obama is doing nothing about it.” People like Charles Krauthammer (in today’s Wash Post) point regularly to the Reagan years as the joyful pages of our history. He forgets to tell his readers that Reagan gave us 10 consecutive months of unemployment rates exceeding 10% in the period of 1982-83. He forgets to tell his readers that Reagan tripled the national debt. He forgets to tell his readers that Reagan’s tax cuts did not save the country from TWO recessions in Reagan’s eight years.

Let me be the one to break some sad news to these pundits: The capitalist system on which America runs has cycles. Really? Yes. We are in one now. The economy is retrenching, reshaping, recharging – (capital is chasing goods and services in the same efficient manner it always has), and the economy will come back stronger than before. I would rather have the slow but steady growth that is in the offing than the artificially high growth the Repubs gave us when they encouraged a “hands off” approach to regulation by government agencies in the period of 2001 to 2008.

Obama’s major mistake is this: When Obama came to Washington, he actually thought the Repubs would find some common ground on which to cooperate with him on some issues. He did not realize that the Gingrich acolytes had been schooled well: they were not ever, EVER, going to cooperate with Obama. How else did they expect to regain the power they so desperately seek? If they cooperate, they make him look reasonable (AND he is, of course), and they could not abide that. Obama did not realize that it is power they seek – and only power – and not effective government for the Nation.

Voters, listen carefully to the loudest voices criticizing President Obama right now if you must, but ask yourself these questions: Do you want to re-install the “do nothing party” that brought the Nation to its knees by the end of the Bush years in 2008? Do we want the Gingrich students, who learned “we will NOT compromise” at their master’s knee, put in charge of the Congress again? Or do we want to continue to productively address the major issues that have confounded Americans for decades. That would be asking for leadership. And what’s wrong with that?

Misinformed like it that way...thank you.

The Boston Globe reports that, in a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger."

In other words, don't confuse us with the facts, don't bother us with the truth, we vote GOP.