Thread: Buyers’ Remorse ?

[b]Wednesday, November 18, 2009[/i]
Obama's support dropping nearly as fast as value of the dollar
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/200...y-as-fast.html


Quinnipiac's latest shows the President's approval rating dropping below the 50% benchmark. And I'd wager he's going to break 40% faster than it took him to reach 50.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1397

President Barack Obama's job approval rating is 48 - 42 percent, the first time he has slipped below the 50 percent threshold nationally, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Of course, with the value of the dollar dropping precipitously on a daily basis, it's truly a race to the bottom.

One telltale sign: when even the microscopic island-state of Mauritius tells us to shove our currency -- and instead buys two tons of gold at $1,115 an ounce -- well, that pretty much tells you where both are headed. http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tin...imf-1115-ounce

Obama job approval rating drops under 50 percent
Fri Nov 20, 6:31 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama's job approval rating has dropped below 50 percent in a second major poll in an indication he is suffering from the long healthcare debate and weakness in the economy, Gallup said on Friday.

Gallup said 49 percent of Americans approved of Obama's job performance. A survey by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday had a similar finding, putting him at 48 percent support.

It was the first time he had fallen below majority support in those two polls. He had been polling in the low 50s for months after taking office in January with an approval rating just under 70 percent.

Gallup said Obama's drop in its daily tracking poll likely resulted from the contentious debate over healthcare as well as the poor state of the U.S. economy, with millions of Americans out of work.

"Americans are also concerned about the Obama administration's reliance on government spending to solve the nation's problems and the growing federal budget deficit," Gallup said in an analysis of its poll, which surveyed 1,533 people from Tuesday to Thursday. The margin of error was 4 points.

Democrat Obama became the fourth-fastest U.S. president since World War Two to drop below majority support in the Gallup poll, following Republican Gerald Ford, Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican Ronald Reagan.

Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said that although Obama's job approval was below 50 percent for the first time nationally, it was not statistically different from his 50 percent approval rating in October.

"Nevertheless, in politics symbols matter and this is not a good symbol for the White House," said Brown. "Moreover, the percentage who approve of the way he is handling the economy has dropped from a split 47-46 percent approval in October to 52-43 percent disapproval today."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091120/...ama_poll/print

Turkeys of the year
by Michelle Malkin
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/25/39069/

As we gather ‘round the Thanksgiving table, bow our heads in prayer, and feast on the holiday bird, it is only fitting to take a moment to fete the unforgettable turkeys of 2009.

1. The stimulus. Back in February, I wrote that if the trillion-dollar stimulus plan were a Thanksgiving dinner entree, it would be a Turbaconducken — the heart attack-inducing dish of roasted chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey, all wrapped in endless slabs of bacon. And so it has come to pass. After the Democrat majority larded up the massive spending package with earmarks and bribes, President Obama declared it pork-free and has stubbornly touted its job creation benefits for out-of-work Americans.

Reality check? The Washington Examiner reports that more than ten percent of the jobs the Obama administration claimed were “created or saved” by the stimulus are doubtful or imaginary. ABC News uncovered countless examples of bogus congressional districts listed as stimulus beneficiaries by the Obama stimulus tracking website, Recovery.gov. The money has been lavished on shady beauty schools in New Hampshire, prison inmates in Texas, and wind companies in Spain and China. Just this week, a California audit found that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation overstated the number of jobs saved by federal stimulus dollars by upwards of 13,000.

While this Generational Theft Act continues to soak up our tax dollars and add to our children and grandchildren’s debt, the Democrat majority is in the government kitchen cooking up a second stimulus turkey to provide federal infrastructure money to public-sector unions. Gobble, gobble.

2. President O-bow-ma. The candidate who pledged to restore America’s standing in the world couldn’t figure out how to stay standing in front of world leaders. In April, he crouched before Saudi King Abdullah. This month, he provoked global derision when he broke protocol and performed a spineless blunder in front of the Japanese emperor.

The kowtower-in-chief’s body language reflected the administration’s broader foreign policy prostrations – including scrapping missile defense in the Czech Republic and Poland, canceling a meeting with the Dalai Lama to appease China, sitting on its hands this summer during the Iranian election protests, and unveiling the 9/11 show trials in New York City that will provide a circus platform to jihadis and international Bush-haters.

The Left complained that George W. Bush was too much of a cowboy on the global stage. It’s better than having a waterboy.

3. Green jobs czar Van Jones. This deep-fried turkey was recruited by Team Obama’s Chicago consigliere Valerie Jarrett, who boasted about recruiting the Marxist rabble-rouser from Oakland. He openly crusaded to free Philadelphia Death Row cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, bashed capitalism with radical revolutionary rhetoric, and signed a 9/11 conspiracy petition that he meekly disavowed in a botched attempt to save his job. Jones is now at the Center for American Progress, run by Obama transition official and Democrat operative John Podesta.

The other turkey in the story, Val Jarrett, escaped unscathed and went on to push the Obamas into their failed crony campaign for the Olympics 2016 bid in Copenhagen – a taxpayer-funded, hubris-infused debacle that ties with Van Jones for third biggest turkey of the year. Rio got the Games.

Photoshop: Paul Croteau

America got a closer look at the pay-for-play patrons, power brokers, and developers in the Windy City that have put an indelible Chicago stamp on the Potomac.

4. The New York Times. Scooped by Fox News, conservative blogs, and talk radio on the exploding ACORN scandal, the paper whitewashed its own role in covering up the community organizing criminal racket’s financial shenanigans last fall when it cut off a reporter’s investigation a few weeks before Election Day. Jill Abramson, the Times’ managing editor for news, acknowledged that her staff was “slow off the mark” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” They assigned a new “opinion media monitor” to track the competition, but refused to identify the watchdog for fear that he/she would get too many mean, intrusive e-mails and phone calls.

More recently, the paper’s website demonstrated that it’s real motto is “All the inconvenient news that’s fit to suppress.” The Times’ lead environmental blogger, Andrew Revkin, haughtily refused to reprint damning e-mails leaked by a hacker in the burgeoning “ClimateGate” scandal. The documents reveal a long trail of manipulated data, but Revkin balked at the ill-gotten trove. The blabbermouths at the Times had no problem exposing national security secrets to undermine George W. Bush. But shed light on scientific hoaxes that undermine Al Gore? Unethical!

5. Tea Party-bashers. Millions of ordinary, peaceful Americans joined the Tea Party movement to revolt against big government, backroom deals, and the Beltway culture of corruption. For their exercise of free speech and free assembly, they were smeared nationwide.

Hollywood has-been Janeane Garafolo called them “racist, backward motherf**kers.”
SEIU labor thug Dennis Rivera accused them of “terrorist tactics.”
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper used a vulgar sexual epithet to describe them.
Team Obama’s astroturfers declared all-out war on them.

For refusing to sit down and shut up in the face of such unhinged bigotry, and for exposing the foulness of the political fowl, I have two words for them: Thank you.

November 28, 2009
The Rats, The Sinking Ship
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...111577494.html

Peggy Noonan has a piece about Obama's declining support among two key constituencies, the Democratic media and the Demoratic foreign policy establishment, but what caught my eye is this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...111577494.html

Mr Obama is in a hard place. Health care hangs over him, and if he is lucky he will lose a close vote in the Senate. The common wisdom that he can't afford to lose is exactly wrong—he can't afford to win with such a poor piece of legislation. He needs to get the issue behind him, vow to fight another day, and move on.

That is a good point, and not just because I said something similar recently. http://justoneminute.typepad.com/mai...20a6b03ff0970b

Congressional Dems are in full panic about facing their base and the rest of the voters in 2010 without something they can describe as a success on health care. But Obama is not up until 2012, so he can play health care the way Bill Clinton played welfare reform in 1996. Not that Obama wants to belly-flop now and watch his party get crushed in Congress, of course, but he can survive and thrive in that environment in a way that they cannot.

Up to now, Obama's failure to lead on health care reform has been, we would think, a negative. But if the bill collapses in the Senate without his fingerprints on it, maybe that can be spun by the remaining Obamites (the few, the proud!) as a failure of Congress rather than the White House.

7 stories Obama doesn't want told
John F. Harris John F. Harris 2 hrs 12 mins ago
Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline, voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a picture that is already neatly framed in their minds.

No one understands this better than Barack Obama and his team, who won the 2008 election in part because they were better storytellers than the opposition. The pro-Obama narrative featured an almost mystically talented young idealist who stood for change in a disciplined and thoughtful way. This easily outpowered the anti-Obama narrative, featuring an opportunistic Chicago pol with dubious relationships who was more liberal than he was letting on.

A year into his presidency, however, Obama’s gift for controlling his image shows signs of faltering. As Washington returns to work from the Thanksgiving holiday, there are several anti-Obama storylines gaining momentum.

The Obama White House argues that all of these storylines are inaccurate or unfair. In some cases these anti-Obama narratives are fanned by Republicans, in some cases by reporters and commentators.

But they all are serious threats to Obama, if they gain enough currency to become the dominant frame through which people interpret the president’s actions and motives.

Here are seven storylines Obama needs to worry about:



He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money

Economists and business leaders from across the ideological spectrum were urging the new president on last winter when he signed onto more than a trillion in stimulus spending and bank and auto bailouts during his first weeks in office. Many, though far from all, of these same people now agree that these actions helped avert an even worse financial catastrophe.

Along the way, however, it is clear Obama underestimated the political consequences that flow from the perception that he is a profligate spender. He also misjudged the anger in middle America about bailouts with weak and sporadic public explanations of why he believed they were necessary.

The flight of independents away from Democrats last summer — the trend that recently hammered Democrats in off-year elections in Virginia — coincided with what polls show was alarm among these voters about undisciplined big government and runaway spending. The likely passage of a health care reform package criticized as weak on cost-control will compound the problem.

Obama understands the political peril, and his team is signaling that he will use the 2010 State of the Union address to emphasize fiscal discipline. The political challenge, however, is an even bigger substantive challenge—since the most convincing way to project fiscal discipline would be actually to impose spending reductions that would cramp his own agenda and that of congressional Democrats.

Too much Leonard Nimoy

People used to make fun of Bill Clinton’s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that, “I feel your pain.”

The reality, however, is that Clinton’s dozen years as governor before becoming president really did leave him with a vivid sense of the concrete human dimensions of policy. He did not view programs as abstractions — he viewed them in terms of actual people he knew by name.

Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.

Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened him to Star Trek’s Dr. Spock.

The Spock imagery has been especially strong during the extended review Obama has undertaken of Afghanistan policy. He’ll announce the results on Tuesday. The speech’s success will be judged not only on the logic of the presentation but on whether Obama communicates in a more visceral way what progress looks like and why it is worth achieving. No soldier wants to take a bullet in the name of nuance.



That’s the Chicago Way

This is a storyline that’s likely taken root more firmly in Washington than around the country. The rap is that his West Wing is dominated by brass-knuckled pols.

It does not help that many West Wing aides seem to relish an image of themselves as shrewd, brass-knuckled political types. In a Washington Post story this month, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, referring to most of Obama’s team, said, “We are all campaign hacks.”

The problem is that many voters took Obama seriously in 2008 when he talked about wanting to create a more reasoned, non-partisan style of governance in Washington. When Republicans showed scant interest in cooperating with Obama at the start, the Obama West Wing gladly reverted to campaign hack mode.

The examples of Chicago-style politics include their delight in public battles with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (There was also a semi-public campaign of leaks aimed at Greg Craig, the White House counsel who fell out of favor.) In private, the Obama team cut an early deal — to the distaste of many congressional Democrats — that gave favorable terms to the pharmaceutical lobby in exchange for their backing his health care plans.

The lesson that many Washington insiders have drawn is that Obama wants to buy off the people he can and bowl over those he can’t. If that perception spreads beyond Washington this will scuff Obama’s brand as a new style of political leader.



He’s a pushover

If you are going to be known as a fighter, you might as well reap the benefits. But some of the same insider circles that are starting to view Obama as a bully are also starting to whisper that he’s a patsy.

It seems a bit contradictory, to be sure. But it’s a perception that began when Obama several times laid down lines — then let people cross them with seeming impunity. Last summer he told Democrats they better not go home for recess until a critical health care vote but they blew him off. He told the Israeli government he wanted a freeze in settlements but no one took him seriously. Even Fox News — which his aides prominently said should not be treated like a real news organization — then got interview time for its White House correspondent.

In truth, most of these episodes do not amount to much. But this unflattering storyline would take a more serious turn if Obama is seen as unable to deliver on his stern warnings in the escalating conflict with Iran over its nuclear program.

He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe

That line belonged to George H.W. Bush, excoriating Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988. But it highlights a continuing reality: In presidential politics the safe ground has always been to be an American exceptionalist.

Politicians of both parties have embraced the idea that this country — because of its power and/or the hand of Providence — should be a singular force in the world. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world.

On this score, the reviews of Obama’s recent Asia trip were harsh.

His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan was symbolic. But his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications.

On the left, the budding storyline is that Obama has retreated from human rights in the name of cynical realism. On the right, it is that he is more interested in being President of the World than President of the United States, a critique that will be heard more in December as he stops in Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize and then in Copenhagen for an international summit on curbing greenhouse gases.

[continues...]

President Pelosi

No figure in Barack Obama’s Washington, including Obama, has had more success in advancing his will than the speaker of the House, despite public approval ratings that hover in the range of Dick Cheney’s. With a mix of tough party discipline and shrewd vote-counting, she passed a version of the stimulus bill largely written by congressional Democrats, passed climate legislation, and passed her chamber’s version of health care reform. She and anti-war liberals in her caucus are clearly affecting the White House’s Afghanistan calculations.

The great hazard for Obama is if Republicans or journalists conclude — as some already have — that Pelosi’s achievements are more impressive than Obama’s or come at his expense.

This conclusion seems premature, especially with the final chapter of the health care drama yet to be written.

But it is clear that Obama has allowed the speaker to become more nearly an equal — and far from a subordinate — than many of his predecessors of both parties would have thought wise.

He’s in love with the man in the mirror

No one becomes president without a fair share of what the French call amour propre. Does Obama have more than his share of self-regard?

It’s a common theme of Washington buzz that Obama is over-exposed. He gives interviews on his sports obsessions to ESPN, cracks wise with Leno and Letterman, discusses his fitness with Men’s Health, discusses his marriage in a joint interview with first lady Michelle Obama for The New York Times. A photo the other day caught him leaving the White House clutching a copy of GQ featuring himself.

White House aides say making Obama widely available is the right strategy for communicating with Americans in an era of highly fragmented media.

But, as the novelty of a new president wears off, the Obama cult of personality risks coming off as mere vanity unless it is harnessed to tangible achievements.

That is why the next couple of months — with health care and Afghanistan jostling at center stage — will likely carry a long echo. Obama’s best hope of nipping bad storylines is to replace them with good ones rooted in public perceptions of his effectiveness.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/200...politico/29993

Politifact: Tracking Obama’s Campaign Promises
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...omises/browse/

PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.

Getting to the point
By Greyhawk

Ouch - CNN Poll: Obama approval under 50 percent.
Looks like maybe the bump wasn't big enough

Support for President Barack Obama's Afghanistan policy is fairly high, but that hasn't stopped his approval rating from dropping below 50 percent for the first time in a CNN poll.

But the president succeeded in at least one effort this week - reminding the public that it's Bush's fault: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...er-50-percent/

Support for Obama's policies does not translate into support for the war itself; a majority still say they oppose U.S. action in that country.


"That may currently be a reflection on George W. Bush rather than Obama," says Holland. "Two-thirds say they blame the former president, not Obama, for the problems the U.S. currently faces in Afghanistan."

But if things don't go well, he's going to have to find someone else to blame soon:

But the poll suggests the conflict is eventually going to become Mr. Obama's War, with 54 percent saying they will blame Obama, not Bush, for any problems the U.S. faces in Afghanistan in 2011.

As far as approval goes, the LA Times notices the same thing we did - setting a withdrawal date doesn't help:

Revealing that key marker on the U.S. military timeline has emerged as the most controversial component of the president's plan. It has attracted criticism from Capitol Hill and sown anxiety among allies, some unsure whether the timeline meant that the United States was planning to leave quickly or stay indefinitely.

Which is why "participants" in developing the speech plan (which is different from the war plan) are now whispering to reporters that it was really the military's idea:

It started out as a projection from the military, intended only for the ears of the president and his top advisors. But in a war council meeting at the White House less than a month ago, Obama proposed making it public.

"Let's name that date," he said, according to participants.

And then on Tuesday, he did.

So there.


But it's Friday, so let's have a bit of song to take us into the weekend on a cheery note. Here's a quick one from Sondheim, dedicated to all the hard working folks in the leaky Obama White House. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK2FV...layer_embedded


http://www.mudvillegazette.com/033012.html

December 08, 2009
Obama's 47 Percent Approval Lowest of Any President at This Point
By Bill Sammon - FOXNews.com

President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.

Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and even Richard Nixon all had higher approval ratings 10-and-a-half months into their presidencies. Obama's immediate predecessor, President George W. Bush, had an approval rating of 86 percent, or 39 points higher than Obama at this stage. Bush's support came shortly after he launched the war in Afghanistan in response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he doesn't "put a lot of stock" in the survey by Gallup, which has conducted presidential approval polls since 1938, longer than any other organization.

"If I was a heart patient and Gallup was my EKG, I'd visit my doctor," Gibbs said in response to questions from Fox. "I'm sure a six-year-old with a Crayon could do something not unlike that. I don't put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is daily Gallup trend. I don't pay a lot of attention to the meaninglessness of it."

Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport responded: "Gibbs said that if Gallup were his EKG, he would visit his doctor. Well, I think the doctor might ask him what's going on in his life that would cause his EKG to be fluctuating so much. There is, in fact, a lot going on at the moment -- the health care bill, the jobs summit, the Copenhagen climate conference and Afghanistan."

The new low comes as Obama struggles to overhaul the nation's health care system and escalates America's involvement in the Afghanistan war. He is also presiding over a deep and prolonged recession, with unemployment at 10 percent.

"There's no doubt Obama's 47 percent is mainly a result of the continuing bad economy," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "But there is also a growing concern about government spending and debt, and a sense that Obama is trying to do too much, too soon."

He added: "President Obama has reason to be concerned about his ratings. Even in tough times, presidents have usually been able to stay above the critical 50 percent mark in the first year, when the public is most inclined to give the new incumbent the benefit of the doubt."

Obama officials have not always shown disdain for Gallup. During last year's presidential campaign, Obama adviser David Plouffe, trumpeted "the latest Gallup poll" to reporters because it showed that 53 percent of Americans did not find Obama Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, "trustworthy."

When Gallup began taking presidential approval polls 71 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt had been president for more than five years. During his remaining time in office, his job approval rating never fell below 48 percent.

The next 11 presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, all had higher job approval ratings than Obama at this stage of their tenure. Their ratings were:

-- George W. Bush, 86 percent
-- Bill Clinton, 52 percent
-- George H.W. Bush, 71 percent
-- Ronald Reagan, 49 percent
-- Jimmy Carter, 57 percent
-- Gerald Ford, 52 percent
-- Richard Nixon, 59 percent
-- Lyndon Johnson, 74 percent
-- John Kennedy, 77 percent
-- Dwight Eisenhower, 69 percent
-- Harry Truman, 49 percent

The poll is an average of a three-day tracking of 1,529 adults taken Dec. 4-6. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...esident-point/


Obama promised a new era of change, and a lot of people bought into it. They ignored or didn’t know about his past voting patterns (present on everything), the fact that he’s done nothing to give him any kind of leadership or executive experience, where he stood on major issues (far, far to the left), who he associated with (terrorists and crooks), and on and on. The media covered for him and he got elected. He promised transparency, he promised bipartisanship. And a country sick of high school squabbling in DC bought it. He ran as a moderate Democrat who would be more fiscally responsible, help staunch our bleeding economy, and restore our standing in the world.

The problem is, they actually expected him to keep his word.

( Psssttt.... he is a politician ... remember?)

Obama doesn’t care about transparency. He doesn’t care about ethics or bipartisanship. He hasn’t been fiscally responsible, he’s done nothing but make the economy worse, he’s tripled our deficit, and he’s alienated many of our closest allies through his pitiful excuse for “smart” diplomacy. Unemployment has skyrocketed, he’s fumbling on the war in Afghanistan, he’s shoved through monumentally unpopular legislation, and he’s apparently just getting started. As if the stimulus and omnibus packages weren’t enough, now he wants to pass government run health care, cap and trade, and apparently coming next year: amnesty. It’s almost as if Obama is trying to make voters hate him. And no matter how much the biased media might try to cover for him, there’s no hiding what he’s doing to our country.

On the other end of the spectrum, it turns out that Americans are liking Sarah Palin more and more. In fact, Obama should be scared — she’s within one polling point of him.

Obama’s new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.

President Obama's Revealing Interviews
by Mike Krumboltz
8 hours ago

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93245?fp=1

President Obama got a lot of face time on TV this weekend. First on "60 Minutes," and then in a heavily hyped interview with Oprah Winfrey at the White House. During the two appearances, the commander in chief touched on a lot of different topics, some serious, some light. Below, we tracked down six of the most revealing and buzzy moments...

His hardest decision...
One can safely assume that the President makes dozens of gut-wrenching decisions every day. After all, that's the job. During his interview on "60 Minutes," Mr. Obama was asked which call was the toughest. His answer, not surprisingly, was increasing the number of troops fighting in Afghanistan. Responding to a comment that some folks found that his speech announcing the troop increase "lacked emotion," the President said that the speech was actually his most emotional, "because I was looking out over a group of cadets, some of whom were going to be deployed in Afghanistan. And potentially some might not come back." Asked if it was his most difficult decision, the President responded, "Absolutely."

Grading himself
Every student dreams of overruling the teachers, and giving him or herself a grade they think is fair. You know, like an A+. When asked by Oprah for his self-report card, the president resisted the urge, instead giving himself "a good solid B-plus." In his favor, the President explained that we "we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We stabilized the economy... We are on our way out of Iraq. I think we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan. We have reset our image around the world." Sounds good, so why not a higher grade? Once health care reform is passed, "he'll bump himself up to an A-."

OMG, it's Bo the dog!
You knew this was going to be huge in the Buzz. A freshly groomed Bo Obama trotted down the White House hallway to greet Oprah, and even put on a few tricks for his visitor. Folks watching the special learned that young Bo can sit on cue. He even showed some spunk by high-fiving Ms. Winfrey. What, no fist bump? Ms. Winfrey was clearly impressed and even asked the First Lady if Bo could "use a buddy" around the White House. Mrs. Obama quickly put the kibosh on that idea. One puppy is apparently enough, even in a mansion.

Is he angry?
With most powerful people, it can be pretty obvious when they're angry. (Try screwing up Naomi Campbell's dinner order and watch what happens.) But with the President, things are a bit different. Rather than losing his temper in the traditional sense, Mr. Obama said that he talks just a bit crisper and clearer to whoever is in his crosshairs. The President even volunteered an example to Oprah — when three economic advisors came in to see him about the same issue for the third time, the boss conceded he was mighty curt.

What they miss?
Living in the White House comes with amazing perks that make the daily grind a little easier, but the Obamas admitted that they do miss a few things about their old lives. Among them: Going to dinner without a bunch of photographers snapping shots, taking bike rides around the lake, and, in Mrs. Obama's words, "going to the Gap." Take that, J. Crew! The president misses not having to shave every day and being able to throw on his old jeans without causing a huge stir, as he did earlier this year with his "mom jeans." Fortunately, there are plenty of things about the White House the Obamas do treasure. Malia and Sasha love spending time with Bo, they really dig the movie theater, going to Camp David, and having friends over for sleepovers.

No more party crashers
The Obamas host sleepovers for their daughters' friends, but in the "60 Minutes" interview, Mr. Obama was clear that there would be no more uninvited party crashers at the White House. The President called the incident, in which an uninvited couple managed to attend an official dinner at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a "screw up," and he's unhappy with those were involved with it. When asked, the President confirmed that he was "seriously angry" about the security breach and that it won't happen again.

Obama gives himself B+ for first months in office
1 hr 53 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama, in remarks aired late Sunday, awarded himself a B plus for his first 11 months in office, stressing in an interview with talk show queen Oprah Winfrey that there was still much to be done.

"A good solid B plus," Obama said during an hour-long, intimate soft-focus ABC network Christmas at the White House special, when Winfrey asked what grade he would give himself.

Explaining why he wouldn't give himself top marks, the president said his administration had "inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt" which they were still working on.

He had earned good points for helping to stabilize the economy, setting a path out of Iraq and restoring America's international image, but the job was not yet finished.

"B plus because of the things that are undone. Health care is not yet signed. If I get health care passed, we tip into A minus," Obama said, his hair visibly grayer than when he took office on January 20.

Winfrey was given an inside tour of the White House by First Lady Michelle Obama, wearing a knee-skimming, long-sleeved simple plum dress.

They inspected the decorations and trees adorning every nook and cranny of the nation's most exclusive address, and which have taken most of the year to plan.

Pride of place went to a huge Christmas tree in the Blue Room hung with more than 650 baubles collected from around the White House closets and then sent around the country for people to decorate by hand with local scenes.

And there was also the 350-pound (160-kilo) gingerbread White House in the dining room, smothered in white chocolate with a model of Bo, the family dog, sitting by the steps.

Michelle Obama acknowledged that Portuguese waterhound Bo, who showed Oprah that he can "High-five" with his paw, would have his own stocking hanging up for Santa.

"Santa loves Bo too," the first lady exclaimed, as she revealed officially that the family would be spending the Christmas holidays in Hawaii where the president spent much of his childhood.

Obama said that if he had a seasonal wish it was: "I want the American people to feel confident that our future is gonna be bright.

"The 21st century will be as much the American century as the 20th century, as long as we maintain our sense of unity, but also our sense of hard work and determination," the president added.

Sometimes holding Winfrey's hand or putting his arm around her shoulder, the president said that visits to the White House by ordinary Americans were events that he cherished the most. He recalled one such visit by the mother and father of a fallen soldier.

"Those kinds of moments are the ones that you remember, partly because you're seeing the place through their eyes," he added.

"When they come here, this is their house. I'm the renter. I'm the borrower. This is the people's house, and one of the things that Michelle and I have both been trying to do is to make sure that we open this place up."

Pointing to the Resolute desk -- a 19th century gift from Queen Victoria built from timbers of the British frigate HMS Resolute, Obama noted this is where he usually signs letters to families of US soldiers who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

"When you're sitting there signing it, you feel the weight of what you're doing," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091214...JhbWFnaXZlc2hp