Joan,

You just wrote a humongously long article that really says nothing other than the 44th president's numbers have trended down over the summer. What did you expect? For them to go up following the launch of a huge HC reform bill that will affect every single American and 1/6 of the GDP? And all of this in throes of a nasty recession where unemployment is approaching 10%. Only a naive would assume no partisan cracks in a 60% approval rating as every one starts taking sides. But your analysis blames the race card for just about everything and anything that causes this president's numbers to drift down. Yes, there is racism out there, but so what else is new.

The main issue is that some of his policies are not well thought out and don't stand up to real scrutiny. He seems to be confusing elective politics with governing.

And how would you compare the Code Pink imbeciles with some of the right-wing loons out there? I bet you never even thought about it.

BTW, the other day, you said I did know "jack" about healthcare because I was carping about the supply aspect of the problem and not the politics of it, well check out MSNBC.com lead story tonite about the 40% anticipated shortage of doctors under Obama's plan based on the Mass. experience.

When Arthur was president, the Dems constantly harrassed him over whether he was legit, or not. They claimed that he was really born in Canada instead of VT, as he had claimed. He was never able to prove where he was actually born because VT did not require bith certificates until 1857.

Carter is a nut. Not only is he ranked near the bottom as an effective president and only recently surpassed by GWB, he now adds to his non-legacy by interjecting the race card into a policy fight over HC.

I will interject the race card into the HC fight only if Obama does, and thus far that has not happened. So why do all the leftist Dems insist this is a race issue when the "big guy" doesn't seem to think so?

If Obama goes anywhere, he is mobbed like a rock star, yet some people, like Carter, assume that his celebrity status is the equivalent of sound policy.

Dear Joan,

You said you are a big fan of Robert Reich even though he is unconcerned about the size and direction of the public debt. His argument is that there is nothing wrong with more debt to achieve a wish list of social programs given that the size of the pie is always getting bigger. If the percentage of debt to GDP is constant over time, what's the big deal? The big deal is that somebody has to finance this debt each and every day and sources of capital to do so are not free and may not be there at all times, or not at all. Then you have an entitlement based program and no way to deliver it.

Unlike employment which is a lagging indicator, the DOW is a leading indicator that guesses the future to a certain extent. I am not surprised that the DOW is up while employment still sucks. Hopefully, 2010 will be different.

Michael Moore also wants to indoctrinate the 18-22 year old crowd into his world view so he does play the role of instructor to the young and naive. He knows that the older folks already get it but asks you to pay $10 to see him in action, once again.

Mr. K does a masterful job of characterizing the whackos out there as social misfits but what about the 49% who disapprove of Obama's job performance? Are they all whackos? Are they being influenced by the whackos? To me, that is the ultimate question. Are the whackos effective at what they do or are they just a nuisance? Was Code Pink effective in opposing the Iraq war or were they only a nuisance.

Fox News brags that they own the evening prime time slots, but perhaps everybody else gets their news and commentary from the intenet and don't have time to watch MSNBC at night? Because right-wing whackos can't read in the first place, they listen to Fox News.

I would be curious to know if there are polls out there that attempt to understand how people arrived at their conclusions.

Obama would be a genius and president for life if he would first fix the Pakistan and India border situation and get these two countries focused on other things other than each other. With that in mind, Pakistan would then be comfortable focusing on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in that order. Presently, Pakistan looks the other way because it does not want a two-front conflict and still dreads a border war with India. If these issues are resolved diplomatically, life gets tough for the Taliban and al-Qaeda because they aren't useful to anyone any longer.

Fixing Kashmir borders must seem like a walk on the beach compared to Palestine.

SNL last Sat nite did more damage to the Obama mystique than Fox News has done in 3 months. Obama needs to look at these criticisms and adjust his game accordingly rather than come across as a complainer.

If we assume the leadership in Iran are realists, does the strategy of nuclear latency make real sense? Do they announce to the world that they have a "potential" nuke or do they keep it a secret and maintain the game of "cat and mouse" indefinitely? If so, where is the deterrent? If they announce it, then have they been liars all along? Will Israel accept their explanation or attack immediately because they have been found to be liars? Recall Saddam played this game poorly with the US and got executed and his country destroyed.

It seems like a risky strategy with lots of downside and little upside.

What is driving them is the implacable hatred of Israel and the US (in that order) and it colors their thinking.