The new Fox News poll purporting that only 43 percent of registered voters would cast ballots to reelect the president demonstrates the difficulty Barack Obama has in passing his health-care legislation through a Congress controlled by his own party. Tethering oneself to a shinking ship is a poor means to survival. "Abandon ship!" is a more likely rallying cry for Democratic congressmen seeking reelection next year. The pull Obama had on day one is not the pull he exerts on day 270. This helps explain the belated frantic push to pass a bill that few have set eyes upon and recalls Milton Friedman's common-sense analysis in The Tyranny of the Status Quo: "a new administration has some six to nine months in which to achieve major changes; if it does not seize the opportunity to act decisively during that period, it will not have another such opportunity." Nine months after being sworn into office, President Obama probably wishes he had taken heed of such wisdom rather than indulged the fantasy he would be popular forever.

""a new administration has some six to nine months in which to achieve major changes; if it does not seize the opportunity to act decisively during that period, it will not have another such opportunity." Nine months after being sworn into office, President Obama probably wishes he had taken heed of such wisdom rather than indulged the fantasy he would be popular forever."

This assumes president Obama wanted liberal reforms that would provide basic human rights for everyone. President Obama has been a tremendous reform president, following in the footsteps of reform president Bush. These reforms continue to dismantle the middle class and enrich incompetent and parasitic finance sectors, exactly what the corporate masters want and exactly what Limbaugh, Beck, Dr. Wiener, Austrians, libertarians, and mainstream conservatives are more than willing to enable either through tacit approval or through propaganda and demagoguery.

Say what?

I think we should all thank our lucky stars that Obama is shrinking. The more ineffective this incompetent boob becomes, the healthier the Republic.

I have to laugh at guys like Kenneth D. Lewis, CEO of BOA. Big O supporter, champion of left causes everywhere, but now verklempt when the O's 'Pay Czar' puts the kibosh on his pay and bonus money. He's set to retire at the end of this year and will expect the huge golden parachute. Let's see what the 'Pay Czar' has in store for him. File under: be careful what you wish for.

"...exactly what the corporate masters want and exactly what Limbaugh, Beck, Dr. Wiener, Austrians, libertarians, and mainstream conservatives are more than willing to enable.."

The "Austrians"?! Could you be even more forthcoming on your economic and poli-philosophical ignorance than that, PMA? Making that list monolithic on this question ... yea, right! I can think of no group of economists or political philosophers that have been more consistently opposed to the corporo-fascism of both Dubya and Herr Obama than the Austrian school of economics.

Beyond that, it is clear - once again - that you have not a clue about libertarian political philosophy (heck, if we were to believe you, you must be a supporter of the corporatist state too!). And while Beck is not the most consistent chap on the radio and TV, he doesn't resemble your remarks here, either. Why criticize what you clearly haven't read or listened to?