President Barack Obama's honeymoon with the American electorate is over, judging by his dropping poll numbers. And if it ever existed, Obama's honeymoon with Congressional Democrats has likewise suffered a messy, complicated demise.
But the honeymoon's end is a good thing for the President, because, of course, once the honeymoon has run its course, the newly married begin their hard slog to building a durable marriage.
Obama Dropping in Polls
Poll numbers for the ever-likable 44th U.S. president have finally begun to drop from stratospheric heights back down to earth. Reports pollster Gallup.com:
"U.S. President Barack Obama averaged a 58% job approval rating for the first eight days of July, down from an average of 61% for June. His approval rating is down most significantly among independents, to 53% so far in July from an average of 59% in June."
Independents were a key factor in Obama's presidential victory. Five months ago, the President enjoyed an extraordinary job approval rating of just over 70%. Rasmussen Reports finds in today's daily tracking poll:
"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-six percent (36%) Strongly Disapprove.
The reasons are clear for falling public confidence in President Obama's performance: unemployment continues to rise, the real estate market appears stagnant, and homelessness festers unabated and unresolved. The Washington Post reported yesterday in More Families Are Becoming Homeless:
"The ravages of the recession, including a surge in foreclosures and unemployment approaching 10 percent, have driven thousands of families onto the streets."
While President Obama has announced a plethora of programs aimed at stemming recessionary woes, few have been implemented or cast more than a ripple effect.
- Only about 7% of Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, passed five months ago, has been spent.
- "The... TARP 'Financial Stability' program to buy risky assets... has been dialed back to a fraction of its originally proposed extent."
- "As of June 17th, CBO could find no evidence that any of the $50 billion allocated for foreclosure mitigation had been spent."
By most accounts, all of these initiatives have lagged, in large part, simply due to a lack of hands-on, fleshed-out planning. Meanwhile, the U.S. deficits soars alarmingly. And while well-intentioned, the President talks only about spending, spending, spending, and about foreign affairs barely relevant to most Americans.
Given these politically-toxic factors, it's a testament to Mr. Obama's charm and personal appeal that his performance ratings aren't far more dismal.
Oddly, though, Barack Obama's brilliant political astuteness as a candidate seems to have evaporated into a post-election haze of overconfidence and irritable self-absorption.
Fortunately, both conditions are imminently correctable for smart, teachable political leaders, and hardly unusual for new U.S. presidents.
Obama Angers Congressional Democrats, Too
Meanwhile, President Obama's naive fantasies of bipartisan Congressional love for his agenda thankfully died in the harsh glare of reality in the first few post-inaugural weeks.
But lately, the Obama administration has managed to enrage Congressional Democrats, as well, by overstepping the bounds of executive authority, and by not toiling over the requisite detailed homework.
Bipartisan Congressional pique spiked last weeek with an astonishing 429-2 vote to rebuke "President Obama for trying to ignore restrictions to international aid payments, voting overwhelmingly for an amendment forcing the administration to abide by its constraints," per TheHill.com.
The scuffle arose when the White House insisted that billions for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank be quietly tucked into recently passed $106 billion war funding legislation.
The House reluctantly agreed, but only after mandating periodic reports and strengthening labor and environmental accords in aid-recipient countries. Aping President Bush, Mr. Obama attached a signing statement to the war funding legislation, declaring that he will not abide by these Congressional mandates.
Infuriated, the House voted 492-2 on July 9, 2009 to rebuke the President for what Rep. Barney Frank dubs "unilateralism, an undemocratic, unreachable way."
Two months ago, Senate Democrats similarly surprised President Obama when they refused to fund his Guantanamo closure idea until he produced an actual plan for the 240 remaining detainees. The Washington Post then reported:
"The decision represents a potentially serious setback for Obama, who as a candidate vowed to close Guantanamo and who signed an executive order beginning the process soon after he took office."
Obama's territorial scrapes with Congressional Democrats were foreshadowed even before his January 20, 2009 inauguration when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid frostily remarked, ""If Obama steps over the bounds, I will tell him. ... I do not work for Barack Obama. I work with him."
Like the factors causing his approval ratings to dive, Obama's shortcomings in dealing with Congress are quite correctable, and not unusual for new U.S. presidents.
Desperately Seeking a Durable Marriage
Undoubtedly, Mr. Obama desires a durable eight-year marriage in the White House. He seeks a reaffirmation in 2012 of long-lasting love... not merely the flighty flirtation of a one-time swoon by Americans at the ballot box.
Barack Obama does not seek to be regarded as a one-shot wonder, elected by an American public blinded by fury at Bush/Cheney and inspired by empty but pretty rhetoric.
Like honeymooners who experience their first painfully heated clash, President Obama is feeling the sting of his first inevitable falls from the lofty perch of lavish public affection.
Like those honeymooners, Obama is falling back down to earth. And's that a good thing, indeed!
"The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was 'a bit too small'," according to respected economist and Obama advisor Laura Tyson, 
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On this 233rd birthday of the United States of America, I urge you to take a few minutes to really absorb the poignant words of this patriotic hymn written in 1893 by a 33-year-old English professor who was inspired by a train trip through America's heartland.