Obama Approval Rating: 11%

Our friend in the White House is surely feeling pretty good right about now. Just Another Capitalist moved him up 7 points in just one week. Things are turning around! Let's see how he springboards off his major gains...

#1: Chavez and Obama, Totally BFF! What do you do when you meet an openly socialist dictator benevolent leader who is extraordinarily anti-America during the Latin America Summit? Call him out on his oppression of his people, you say? Chastise him for any one of a plethora of statements he has made about your country, you say? Maybe just give him the cold shoulder? Perhaps you simply make a stern stand for liberty, justice, and the American way?

You right wing hatemonger! You don't do those things. You shake his hand, pat him on the back, and then accept his gift of a book of truth. That book, titled "The Open Veins of Latin America" is written by a a Uruguayan journalist named Eduardo Galeano. The subject?

"How Europe, and later the United States, plundered Latin America's resources and helped create a perpetual state of widespread poverty and wealth disparity. From the obliteration of indigenous people by Spanish conquistadors to the destructive cycles of foreign debt, investment and capitalism, Galeano lays out the Latin American saga from 1492 to the 20th century."

Just a little light reading. Really, this is disgraceful. I can forgive the President for accepting the book in the first place, perhaps, if he didn't know the subject matter. I don't expect him to have an encyclopedic knowledge of every published work. What I do expect from him is to discard it, publicly, once he finds out what it is about. How can our President accept with a grin a book that trashes America and the West and blames us for every problem of Central America? For cuddling up to yet another dictator, he loses 3%.

#2: Yeah, the no prosecution thing is SO last week! "So, like, when I said that there wouldn't be any prosecutions on the whole waterboarding thing, what I meant was there totally were going to be." This according to the Guardian who reports "Senior members of the Bush administration who approved the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation measures could face prosecution, President Obama disclosed today" and that the practice reflected America "losing our moral bearings".

For those of you who are living comfortably under a rock (I didn't know you could get internet access there!), here's an explanation of what waterboarding is:

"Water boarding as it is currently described involves strapping a person to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. The interrogators bind the person's arms and legs so he can't move at all, and they cover his face. In some descriptions, the person is gagged, and some sort of cloth covers his nose and mouth; in others, his face is wrapped in cellophane. The interrogator then repeatedly pours water onto the person's face. Depending on the exact setup, the water may or may not actually get into the person's mouth and nose; but the physical experience of being underneath a wave of water seems to be secondary to the psychological experience. The person's mind believes he is drowning, and his gag reflex kicks in as if he were choking on all that water falling on his face."

I personally don't consider this to be torture. It is terrifying, but the fact remains it is all in the person's head. They are not actually drowning. I put this in the same place I put sleep deprivation, loud music or babies crying, and other psychological techniques. But I digress.

Just last week the President got kudos from me for not prosecuting those who carried out their duties. I can disagree with him on the policy, but I can respect the restraint and the desire to move forward. What I cannot believe is that he is still able to walk after making such an abrupt about face. We're not talking about people authorizing public executions, or dismemberment. This is a grey area, and officials made a judgement call. To go back and play Monday morning quarterback is not only wrong, it damages the ability of officials to make similar calls later on. The "play it safe" mentality is one we cannot always afford to have.

Not to mention the fact that members of Congress knew that the technique was being used at the time and said nothing (whether Obama is included in this group is unclear). Should they be prosecuted as well? How many people are we going to hang?

In his defense, he still says that the actual operatives will not be prosecuted, presumably because they were just following orders. This is certainly better than nothing, but still leaves me wanting.

Rather than wasting time tracking down each and every person who knew this was happening and did nothing about it, why don't we just get along with our plan from last week. You know, simply outlawing it, thereby emboldening our enemies, threatening our national security, and showing the world that we're going to play nice. The administration loses 3% for flopping around harder than a newly caught bass.

#3: You dirty, no good, right-wing extremist veterans! I debated with myself about putting this here. After all, Obama himself didn't say anything about the report. I eventually decided to include it at the end because it was the action of his administration, for which he is responsible. As usual, I don't expect him to be superhuman and know what every department is doing at every moment. He is kinda busy, leader of the free world and all. Still, this is kind of a big deal. I went over the DHS report in detail here. It does deserve note that Napolitano has since apologized for implying that veterans were a threat to national security.

As for the rest of you anti-abortion, gun clinging, small government whackjobs who were lumped in the report: We've got our eyes on you.

The administration loses 5% for equating me and mine with neo-Nazis. They gain 1% for apologizing for it after the fact. Net loss: 4%

So, the tally for today is a downward shift of 10 points, leaving the President at 11%. Drive on, Mr. President, don't you let go of that second digit for nobody!