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President Obama may cultivate an image as the unflappable Mr. Cool, but he can get hot under the collar too, according to a new book. In "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," by Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter, the author recounts a series of private blow-ups - including a particularly fiery one involving the nation's top military brass. "A presidential dressing down unlike any in the United States in more than half a century," is how Alter describes the October 2009 eruption. [Snip] But it's often the flashes of anger, not amour, that shine through Alter's tome, including: Asked...

I think these numbers are mostly an artifact of bad timing, for reasons I’ll explain, but … wow. A new, annual survey of American Jewish public opinion by the American Jewish Committee finds that Jews, by and large, continue to approve of Obama — 57 percent say they approve of the job he’s doing — and also back his handling of Israel. The 55 percent who approve of Obama’s Israel policy is a slight improvement on the finding in the same survey last year, while the disapproval number has ticked up slightly more. His net support on Israel has declined...

An unscientific CBS News poll evaluating President Obama's first year in office gives him – by an overwhelming margin – a failing grade. In the poll, which has been online for several weeks and has attracted thousands of comments, not even 3 percent of the respondents grade Obama with an "A," barely another 3 percent give him a "B" and about 4 percent give him a "C." Almost 26 percent give him a "D" and more than 63 percent him an "F." Said one person on the poll's comments section: "Obama may be a Harvard Law School graduate, but when...

Barack Obama ‘destroys first year in office’ Barack Obama Christina Lamb in Washington WHEN President Barack Obama took office last year he was compared to Superman, even joking at a dinner that he had been “born on Krypton and sent here ... to save the planet Earth”. Last January he appeared on the cover of Spider-Man. Now, with his ambitious legislative agenda in tatters, the once invincible president has moved from comic-strip hero to comparisons to one of the great flawed figures of American literature. Ten days ago a leading election analyst, Charlie Cook, compared Obama and his battle to...

Something has gone very wrong. Was it just a year ago that Democrats assumed more control in Washington than the party has had in my lifetime? It was. Was it just a year ago that President Obama promised a new era of change, bipartisanship and transparency? It was. Just weeks into office, the president pushed through a major stimulus package to save the American economy, restore credit, build infrastructure and create jobs. Now, unable to get Republicans to support what was their idea — a bipartisan commission on the deficit — the president has appointed one of his own, complete...

A year ago, Barack Obama's true believers were euphoric. The huge and jubilant gathering in Chicago's Grant Park on Election Night 2008 gave way to almost 2 million people on the Mall for the president's inauguration. He took office as the most popular incoming president in a generation. A movement had become a mandate of nearly 70 million votes. People hoped the new president would bring change to Washington, the hallmark claim of his historic candidacy. Now, the mood through much of the nation seems restive, even sour. It is almost jarring to look at the photographs from Grant Park,...

At 18, Ben Taber soaked up the stadium-size vibe of Barack Obama's nomination with a sense of wonder as he joined an unprecedented wave of young voters that would help carry their candidate to the White House. By the time he turned 20 this week, that emotional and philosophical bond with the president had been tempered by a steep learning curve about governance, and a stern reality check about the scope and pace of hope and change. "For the most part, the general tenor of this administration is something I like," says Taber, who worked as a U.S. Senate intern...

Well, is God blessing Barack Obama? The beleaguered US President must wonder about that every time he wakes up in the White House. Part of his problem, of course, is that when he ran for the presidency under the slogan of change, the electorate projected their own dreams and aspirations onto what was effectively a blank slate; some even saw him as a black messiah. The problem with being viewed in this way is that when expectations are not met, the messiah can quickly morph into the scapegoat. So what is it with Obama and God? Last week’s television programme...

Obama: "Why I'm willing to be away from my family for long stretches at a time, the financial sacrifices that so many of you have made, being subject to criticism constantly, you don't get in this for the fame, you don't get in this for the title"....Here's a man only used to crowds cheering and people fainting....

The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-American moment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financial panic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon. --snip--There had been that magical moment—the campaign of 2008—and the true believers want to return to it. But reality is merciless. The spell is broken.

What happened to the bright dreams, the hope and change? A year ago, fate handed President Obama one of the most tantalizing political opportunities in history. His party enjoyed a blowout election. The Republicans were leaderless and devoid of ideas. The Democrats had hefty majorities in both houses of Congress. Obama had stratospheric approval ratings and the support of a nation profoundly fearful of the future. And then he threw it all away. He outsourced chunks of his job to a left-wing congressional leadership that has learned nothing and forgotten nothing for the past 35 years. What came next was...

It’s been a year since Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, the first African-American to hold the nation’s highest office. It’s been a year of highs and lows, from winning the Nobel Peace Prize to adding trillions of dollars to the national debt by enacting massive government spending programs – while continuing to battle for a nearly $1 trillion overhaul of the nation’s health care system. His job approval rating also have gone from high to low, down nearly 20 points since taking office. How would you grade President Obama’s first year in office?

This is about the time Barack Obama becomes bored with his job. He's in his second year as president, and he's discovered that even with all the powers of office, he can't do everything he wants to do, like remake America. Doing stuff is hard. In the past, prosaic work has held little appeal for Obama, and it's prompted him to think about moving on. snip According to the book, the majority leader invited Obama to his office for a talk. "You're not going to go anyplace here," Reid told Obama. "I know that you don't like it, doing what...

Wall Street Trader: “Pretty Much Everyone Hates Obama” John Carney Jan. 27, 2010, 2:07 PM After a year in which his administration’s policies helped produce some of the best years on record for Wall Street firms, President Barack Obama has been struggling to recast himself as an adversary of the banks. He seems to have succeeded in taking on this role with one important group—the bankers themselves. “Pretty much everyone hates Obama,” a senior trader at a major Wall Street firm told us. "He's never been popular but this is a whole new level," he said. The trader explained that...

More than three-quarters of Americans said that the current economic conditions are the worst that they've ever lived through, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday, hours before President Obama delivers his first State of the Union address, indicated that 77 percent of the public feels that the rough economic times the country's currently facing are the worst in their lifetime, while 22 percent said they've lived through worse times. According to the poll, the economy remains the number-one issue on the public's mind, and six in ten Americans said it is extremely important...

This week marks the one year anniversary of Susan Rice’s confirmation by the United States Senate to represent the American people at the United Nations. Over the past 12 months, the U.S. has faced some serious foreign policy challenges such as Iran’s nuclear ambitions, North Korea’s ongoing nuclear weapons’ tests, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, freezing terrorists’ assets world-wide and now the on-going disaster in Haiti. But while the UN struggles to find common ground on these and other important issues, Susan Rice has chosen to spend several days of the work week over the last year in Washington, DC hanging out...

In the new movie The Young Victoria, the mother of Victoria and her chief overseer meet with the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, to discuss what role they’ll play now that Victoria has become queen of England. They’ve waged a fierce struggle to retain control over Victoria. Suddenly Melbourne cuts off the chatter and bluntly explains the situation. “You lost,” he says. That’s the situation that faces President Obama and his White House advisers. Months of polls on the president and his policies, the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s elections, then last week’s momentous Massachusetts Senate race – all have sent...

By May 2009, Americans began to lose confidence in Mr. Obama, and the god began to bleed. The numbers saying the country was on the wrong track crept back upward. Mr. Obama' public approval rating began its great decline, the most rapid of any first-year president, according to Gallup. The decline has been broad and deep; Mr. Obama has lost support nearly uniformly from men and women across all age groups and all incomes. The most striking slump occurred with the white middle class, which bears the brunt of Mr. Obama's wildly irresponsible fiscal policies. White approval dropped from 60...

Fox News was the top cable network in primetime last week, averaging the most total viewers between January 18th-24th. The last time FNC topped USA and came in first was during the week of the 2008 presidential election. In a week dominated by coverage of the earthquake in Haiti and the U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, FNC drew an average of 3.2 million total viewers in primetime (Mon-Sun). Fox was ranked 3rd in total day. CNN was 22nd in primetime and 19th in total day, and MSNBC was 25th in primetime and 31st in total day. Here's are the primetime...

Gallup measures the Obama approval rating that Republican give Obama vs. Democrats, the gap is 13 points more than the polarization of Bill Clinton's first year....And this is the President that was gonna bring a divided country together....(Charts)

Populist or professor? Contrite or uncompromising? President Obama will have a chance Wednesday to reintroduce himself to the nation when he delivers his first official State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. The prime-time speech, which will be aired on all major TV networks and cable stations, could hardly come at a more critical time for a president grappling with double-digit unemployment, sinking poll numbers and the possible collapse of his top domestic policy priority, an overhaul of the nation's health-care system. "As often as the president has spoken over the past year, critics on the...

(CNSNews.com) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that the issue of job creation has “permeated” the efforts of congressional Democrats over the past year. Pelosi’s statement stands in stark contrast to a bleak jobs year that saw unemployment rise to over 10 percent. “The jobs issue has permeated everything, [every] major initiative that we have,” Pelosi said at her weekly press briefing Thursday. The speaker outlined the various proposals that she said had pulled the economy “back from the brink” over the past year. “With the recovery package, we not only created jobs – about 2 million saved or...

The White House is evaluating whether to take a breather on health care or try to push for passing legislation, but is not convinced Massachusetts voters were trying to block health insurance reform by voting last week to send Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday. -snip- Gibbs said that Brown may have campaigned on stopping the health care bill but that's not why voters elected him over Democrat Martha Coakley. "More people voted to express their support for Barack Obama than to oppose him," Gibbs said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday will propose a package of new initiatives aimed at helping middle-class families, including an expanded child-care tax credit and help with retirement savings. The initiatives come as Obama is taking a more populist turn in his rhetoric, pledging to fight for the middle class and taking a tougher line toward Wall Street. A year into his presidency, Obama and his Democratic Party are seeing an erosion of his support among middle-class Americans who swept him into office. Frustration with the 10 percent unemployment rate and wariness toward Obama's plans to change...

Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home. “I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going...

The irony was breathtaking: exactly one year after US President Barack Obama’s all-conquering inaugural in January 2009, the late Edward Kennedy’s US Senate seat in Massachusetts went to the Republicans. Suddenly, Obama’s domestic agenda, and its kingpin, health care, are in trouble. It is hard to believe, after the euphoria of 2008, that Obama’s place in history may depend on a single vote in the US Senate. But it does: the 60-40 supermajority is gone, and Obamacare may not survive. Obama has not done all that badly, but expectations were so inflated that there was bound to be a let-down,...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Osama bin Laden's word choice in the latest audio message attributed to him is seen as a "possible indicator" of an upcoming attack by his Al-Qaeda network, a US monitoring group warned Sunday. IntelCenter, a US group that monitors Islamist websites, also said that manner of the release and the content of the message showed it was "credible" that it was a new release from the Saudi extremist. "The Osama bin Laden audio message released to Al-Jazeera on 24 January 2010 contains specific language used by bin Laden in his statements in advance of attacks," IntelCenter said...

Waking up a Year Later with Everything turned Upside down. You almost have to feel sorry for the liberals. A year ago Obama had a 60% approval rating, Democrats were trusted more than Republicans on almost all issues and they had a huge democrat majority in congress. Yet now they must wake up each morning knowing it's all been lost, and wondering how it happened. To most liberals it all went bad this past week. They were sure that Martha Coakley would pull it out in the Massachusetts Senate race over Scott Brown. They were sure that some sort of...

White House adviser: Obama has brought 'enormous change' Posted: January 24th, 2010 11:29 AM ET Washington (CNN) - The White House rejected criticism Sunday that President Barack Obama has not delivered on his promise of "change" during his first year in office. White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said the president has brought about "enormous change." "I think what we've seen is a dramatic difference in terms of how the United States is perceived around the world," Jarrett told NBC's "Meet the Press," on the final Sunday before the president's State of the Union address. Obama's travels have established relationships...

White House brass split on stimulus stats White House advisers appearing on the Sunday talk shows gave three different estimates of how many jobs could be credited to President Obama’s Recovery Act. The discrepancy was pointed out by a Republican official in an email to reporters noting that “Three presidential advisers on three different programs [gave] three different descriptions of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill.” Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more...

Here is video of Meet the Press moderator David Gregory today confronting Obama Adviser Valerie Jarrett about her claim that Obama has "turned the economy around." After she made the claim, Gregory interrupted Jarrett and said: "I'm sorry - you can't say you've turned the economy around when there are 4 million jobs that have been lost on the President's watch, when the Debt is higher, and the Stimulus did not produce the jobs the administration said it would."Jarrett responded with "actually I disagree with everything you just said." Jarrett had a shocked look on her face as Gregory made...

President Obama is moving swiftly to try to recover from his worst week in the White House, speeding up his schedule for engaging in the 2010 political races and planning to use his State of the Union address on Wednesday to show the public a feisty side, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said in a telephone interview with POLITICO. He vowed, however, that there will be “no reinventing” of the president, even though “Washington loves a shakeup or human sacrifice.” Stunned by the rejection of the Democrat in the Massachusetts Senate race last week, Obama asked David Plouffe, his...

It’s a growing trend in a turbulent economy. Conceal-carry gun permits are on the rise, especially among people you might not expect to be packing heat.

The President, who has until now preferred consensus over confrontation, vowed to drop the gloves should bankers unleash lobbyists on Capitol Hill to quash the proposals: "If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have." Republicans intend to take him up on that. The President's tough talk was immediately ridiculed as "faux-populism" by New Jersey GOP Congressman Scott Garrett. The President did not offer specific remedies for the main source of public ire toward the banks - the executive bonuses that Mr. Obama yesterday labelled as "obscene." And the rules unveiled by the President raised as...

The Talk Shows Sunday, January 24th, 2010 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.THIS WEEK (ABC): White House senior adviser David Axelrod; Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Jim DeMint, R-S.C. STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Axelrod; Menendez; Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

I am a registered Independent. I voted for Barack Obama. And for that, I am sorry. I'm not sorry for you. I'm sorry for me. Because I voted for Obama for me, not for you. I voted for hope and change and all the intangibles that Obama was peddling in the wake of the financial crisis, Sarah Palin, Sept. 11 and all the other ills that shook our country in the last decade. I wanted something new. Something different. What I got was, I suppose, exactly what I voted for - a spin doctor. And not a very good one...

In early January 2007, Barack Obama dropped by the Chicago office of his chief strategist David Axelrod for a chat. Clad in jeans and his White Sox cap, Obama was fresh off a family vacation where he had tramped along Waikiki Beach, grappling with some final doubts about making the race for President. Obama acknowledged to Axelrod that, unlike so many politicians of the modern era - thorny amalgams of hubris, egocentricity and glaring need - he didn't require the presidency to achieve self-worth.

Obama's approval rating according to Gallup's tracking poll has hit a new low of 47%. Rasmussen's model, which was vindicated yet again, along with Public Policy Polling, in Massachusetts last week, shows 55% of voters disapprove of Obama's job performance and 44% approve (43% strongly disapprove and 24% strongly approve).

WASHINGTON (AP) -- One year in, President Barack Obama faces a perilous economic choice. He can't pull back the stimulus too quickly, despite the public's concerns about rising deficits, because that could kill a fragile recovery. If he steps too hard on the throttle to create more jobs, responding to another voter imperative, he risks feeding inflation and restarting the dangerous cycle. The GOP Senate upset in Massachusetts shows that the political risks of any bold move are enormous. Either way, the road ahead probably means painfully slow job creation accompanied by more government debt and higher taxes.

US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope. US President Barack Obama has had a number of difficult weeks during his first year in the White House. Right after he took office, he had to wade through a week full of partisan bickering over his economic stimulus package combined with a tax scandal surrounding Tom Daschle, the man Obama had hoped would lead his health care reform team.

If you want to see how bad things may be for President Obama, consider Bill Maher's comments on the President at the Westbury Music Fair in Long Island last night. I was present, and there were gasps and hisses when Maher made several cutting comments about Obama to the packed crowd who, no doubt, would have preferred to have Republicans roasted rather than their favorite President. Maher seemed a little taken aback by the audience reaction, but pointed out that criticism of Obama was warranted in the current climate. He soon won the crowd over. Maher was not about to...

(Jan. 22,2010) -- It's his show and he can cry if he wants to. But as Glenn Beck celebrated a successful first year on the air this week, viewers couldn't help but notice that the conservative firebrand wasn't in the partying mood. One reason could be that the bully pulpit is getting a little crowded at Fox News. Sarah Palin's debut as the network's newest commentator seems to have irked Beck on some visceral, territorial level. And now, after waging a colorful -- and successful -- rhetorical war against President Barack Obama, the right-wing populist was engaged in an altogether...

It was just yesterday that I posted about the equally meteoric rise and fall of BHO. But apparently driving Obama's failures home... not merely confined to the MA special election loss... was important enough for Mort Zuckerman - former Obama supporter - to again fire another political shell over Obama's bow. After recapping domestic and foreign failure after failure on record, Zuckerman's op-ed in US News and World Report, "The Incredible Deflation of Barack Obama" comes to a single conclusion: The consequence is that there isn't a single critical problem on which the president has a positive public rating. Only...

It is State of the Union time again. Like every president before him, Barack Obama will declare that the state of our union is fundamentally sound, but it needs some tuning up. (In his case, a tune-up costs about $2 trillion and nine czars.) But in my opinion, the state of our union is, to use the word of the day, "unsustainable." That means "dying" in everyday language. Almost a year ago, I wrote of the "real" state of our union. We have less than 10 years to get our mess straightened out. In that time we need to do...

RASMUSSEN: Obama Approval Index: -18 Strongly Approve 25% Strongly Disapprove 43% Total Approval: 45%

gentlemen of the press (and the ladies, too) are mostly a decent sort, often a bit prideful and sometimes with not very much to be prideful about. They're comfortable only by running in a herd. Trying to think alone gives them a migraine. A fortnight ago, Scott Brown was merely a footnote to the ritual of selecting a successor to Teddy Kennedy, not worth the attention of respectable reporters, pundits or pollsters. Everyone in the herd was sure that "the Kennedy mystique," though tattered and frayed, would produce a suitable substitute to fill Teddy's size twelves. A pundit or pollster...

One year ago today, Rasmussen Reports was just beginning to track what they refer to as the “approval index” of President Barack Obama – a system that measures the difference between those who strongly approve and those who stronlgy dissaprove of the job he’s doing in office.

January 20, 2009 - President Obama made some big promises to the people. One year later has he kept his word? Let's take a look at what he said and then what he did. Barack Hussein Obama made a lot of promises during his two-year long campaign, and attempted to solidify these pledges in his inaugural address.  True, these promises took a softer form (some might call it pap) in his inaugural speech, but those who supported him and voted for him in 2008 understood what he was meant to do on their behalf.  This was, of course, before...

Dow Ends Down Over 200 Points, As Bloody Selloff Goes Two Days In A Row Joe Weisenthal Jan. 21, 2010, 4:03 PM This was ugly. A combination of mediocre earnings, jitters out of China and, possibly, Obama's new populist streak, absolutely hammered stocks for the second day in a row. The dow ended down about 217 (212.51), the second big triple-digit loss in a row. Big financial stocks got brutalized. This chart, via FT Alphaville, showing the divergence of large banks and regionals tells the whole story:[snip]

The Kansas City Business Journal has published their BUSINESS PULSE SURVEY. They want to know what you think about the Job President Obama has been doing on behalf of America. Please take a moment and vote so that folks in the Heartland of America know how you really feel. A B C D F