The Summer Of Our Discontent

While a local newspaper here in the North East yesterday made a reference to "autumn in July", despite the cool temperatures, it is still technically summer. It is not the weather, however, that is responsible for the discontent.

Slightly more than five months into the job, Barack Obama has proven to be a challenge even to his ardent supporters. And to the millions who voted with their hearts - and who have also begun to show signs of a pending break-up - he has become the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room. ( For the record, I absolutely refuse to avoid using a perfectly good metaphor out of fear of offending someone).

President Obama's personal approval rating remains in good numbers, but he is falling like a proverbial meteorite in performance polls as the summer wears on, something the weather may have affected. While Obama continues to push for climate legislation that will ultimately cripple what's left of our economy, his only ally may be the fact that many are actually saving money on their energy bills because - at least in the north - it has been damned chilly for summer. But the brief respite people feel in their personal budgets may not equate to support for the president's efforts to combat what these same savers increasingly see as a non-existent problem.

People are beginning to seriously question whether punitive legislation is needed at all, based on the cool summer combined with the growing list of dissenting scientists who are challenging the theory of anthropogenic global warming. That's a good start.

Add to this the fact that people on the political fringes - those who "strongly approve or strongly disapprove" of the president's job performance - have begun to diverge negatively for Obama, and the trend against him is clear; people are beginning to awaken from the nightmare they inflicted upon not only themselves, but the rest of us. By the end of the summer, Obama will own this terrible economy and accompanying record deficits, even in the eyes of those who formerly were happy to blame Bush 43, and they will turn on him at an accelerated pace.

Indeed, as unemployment continues to rise along with America's debt, people will remember the empty promises made by candidate Obama and compare them with the failure of president Obama, particularly because of the super majority he has enjoyed since the seating of Al Franken in Minnesota. It is entirely possible that - with same-party defections on the increase - the state-run media will attempt to convince the people that Obama was unsuccessful due to sabotage, claiming that the contrarian members of congress were not "truly democrats". I maintain that the American people will not be fooled for that long, however, as they continue to witness the media frantically struggling to conceal the stains on their blue dresses.

While I was pathetically lugubrious a mere few months ago, I am now hopeful. As long as the Republicans don't shoot themselves in the foot, the summer of our discontent may prove to be the venue to avert nearly a decade of that condition.

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