High-wispy clouds with a semi-clear sky this early Wednesday on California’s north coast with the moon hanging like a chewed fingernail far to the east.
The day before Turkey Day and all is quiet — except everywhere!
Life with President Obama is anything but tranquil these days. He visited Hollywood yesterday, raising funds and touring the DreamWorks Animation studio, where he caught a ‘toon clip of his voice coming from a purple alien. The president was moved to cute: “That’ll impress the girls,” Obama said, then making a quip about the character’s ears. Someone then offered to “animate the State of the Union address.”
Re-animation would be a more-creative approach.
In the first year of his second term, Obama is amidst a seeming barrage of shit from a never-ending story of the NSA (the newest episode includes spying on “porn habits” of so-called terrorists), the Obamacare start-up, and a general lack of empathy from the public.
(Illustration found here).
Americans are seemingly enmeshed in their own private problems to render a thoughtful, peaceable salute to the president — he’s been falling, falling the last several months in the eyes of US voters.
A CBS News poll from last week:
President Obama has also taken a hit on views of his honesty.
During the presidential campaign last fall, 60 percent of voters said Mr. Obama was honest and trustworthy, but just 49 percent of Americans think that today.
Most Democrats (84 percent) say the president is honest and trustworthy, but most Republicans don’t think he is (77 percent). Independents are more divided in their assessments: 43 percent think President Obama is honest and trustworthy, but 53 percent don’t think he is.
Some pretty hard numbers.
Kristen Soltis Anderson at The Daily Beast yesterday took it further:
For Obama, the worries have not been simply about one bad poll number.
Each new poll released this month has added to the pattern of declining favorability and trust.
That is not just a factor of intense frustration from core Republican constituencies but is notable among key voter groups that comprise the Obama coalition.
Consider the November Quinnipiac national poll, where a majority of voters said they found Obama not to be honest and trustworthy; those voters included a majority across all age groups, including the young, as well as 49 percent of women and 49 percent of Hispanics.
Six of 10 independents felt the same.
Of course, it is still nearly a year until the crucial midterm elections that will define much of what Obama will or will not be able to do with his remaining years in the White House.
But with a shrinking reservoir of favorability and a loss of the benefit of the doubt from voters, he will have a weaker hand while trying to turn his fortunes around.
And as the holidays loom, Obama is facing the ugliest point in his presidency — he might get as low as George Jr., and how will that sit with the way life is twisted into knots.
Also, from that CBS poll:
When compared to recent, two-term presidents, President Obama’s approval rating is similar to that of George W. Bush at this point in his presidency, but lower than the ratings of both Bill Clinton an Ronald Reagan.
In November 2005, 35 percent of Americans approved of the job President Bush was doing.
That number mostly declined over the rest of his term, hitting a low of 20 percent in October 2008.
Obama future is fate of life.