That and he's appearing more like a typical politician than the new face in Washington he appeared to be when he got into office. I don't mean that in any bad way (although I don't support him to begin with) but he's not the first POTUS where this has happened. Campaign season comes with some pretty funny quirks and don't always show a full awareness of what being POTUS is like.
How much experience did he have in national politics when elected?
The shock to the system has to be significant.
Add to that all of the campaign promises he has had to eat (Gitmo, immigration reform, Patriot Act etc etc ect). Now, I don't fault him for that. Politics makes people do things they'd prefer not to do. I suspect he wasn't prepared for the scale of forced acceptence.
Add to that sinking approval numbers. The healthcare bill had diminishing support. How many 2000 page bills were passed before anyone could read them? His refusal, at first, to give up the names of people in his administration who represented prisoners in Gitmo etc... this has a collective impact on how he is perceived. He claimed that he'd be a model of transparency. He's not living up to it. Again, I don't fault him. I just don't think he fully understood what came attached to the office.
His established tendency to throw people under the bus... in the case of Sherrod they didn't bother to explore the facts before tossing her overboard.
Racial issues; he said he would open a dialogue about race. Far from it. It has been a sword, a shield and it has been both for his opposition as well. His record is not one of a free exchange of ideas on the subject but of forcing silence on the issue.
Obviously I don't support the man's policies but he's got a damn hard job. I suspect he got a lot more than he bargained for. His first two years came with massive congressional support. I suspect a congress controlled by the GOP will actually help his ratings.
we'll see
