The country for the most part still likes and trusts Barack Obama the person, but people are now starting to no longer see the president as a strong leader. They’re also beginning to doubt his ability to get things done, according to the latest Pew poll.

Yesterday Grijalva was perfectly willing to hand over his Congressional authority to a new Catfood II Super Congress to slash Social Security and Medicare when he vote for the all-cuts Reid bill.

Obama likes to posit his conception of the world of the possible as the only world available. He has almost never taken a lead on a piece of legislation that he thought would fail, choosing his battles. He has seen the world as it is, and then called that the best world on which we can live.

Apocalypse Never is a frightening book to read but impossible to put down. In clear, accessible prose, Tad Daley unblinkingly lays out the case, point by point, for why we must ultimately rid the world of nuclear weapons or else suffer the inevitable consequences of the end of civilization as we know it. Daley then takes on the task of showing how this seemingly Herculean task can be accomplished, even within our lifetimes. It is compelling and accurate in its assessments and one of the absolute best out there on why we simply cannot continue along the way it has been.

The reaction among liberals to the President’s speech Wednesday reminds us how thirsty liberals/progressives have been for President Obama to show the slightest hint of courageous, progressive leadership. So when Obama, who has repeatedly betrayed liberal values cherished by the Democratic Party since FDR, finally said what liberals/progressives have been saying for months, much of the liberal community cheered or at least said, “finally!” But this was easy.

After Tucson, Arizona Shootings” (Sam Stein). It’s like Obama wants to check the box on every issue without sacrificing any political capital. The record is clear – Great speech (check), solid policy statement (check), no political capital expended (check). Likewise with the Wisconsin protest, if we were to look at the record, Obama made statements supporting the Unions (check), no political capital expended (check).

The focus on events at Fukushima Daiichi belie the apparently woeful response to the crisis created by the companion natural disasters that have killed at least 10,000 and left up to a half a million homeless.

If Obama actually thinks there are wasteful discretionary programs, like ethanol subsidies and farm subsidies, he should just directly call for those programs to be eliminated. If ending a bunch of bad corporate welfare programs results in an overall cut in discretionary spending, that is good.

Last night, it appeared that Elijah Cummings would attempt to leapfrog seniority and obtain the ranking membership of the House Oversight Committee with the backing of outgoing ranking member Ed Towns. However, Towns reversed course last night, saying in a statement, “I support Carolyn Maloney to become Ranking Member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. She is next in line on the Committee, she has the seniority and competence to serve the Caucus well.”

The common approach is to look to House “leaders” as how they will play broadly in the country, whether they have the ability to excite the mass middle of the public. Yet we know that the identity of the number 2 Democrat in the leadership will have no bearing whatsoever on the fate of the House in 2012 and beyond. The leadership position is a legislative one, particularly the position of the Minority Whip, whose job mainly entails keeping the caucus unified on important votes.