"Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll...

"Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama's tenure...

"The results show 'a really ugly mood and an unhappy electorate,' said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. 'The voters, I think, are just looking for change, and that means bad news for incumbents and in particular for the Democrats.'"

"For all his John Wayne rhetoric on the BP oil spill, President Obama has failed to administer a swift kick to the ample, deserving rump of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. No matter: Federal judge Martin Feldman has now done the job the White House won’t do.

"In a scathing ruling issued Tuesday afternoon, New Orleans–based Feldman overturned the administration’s radical six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling — and he singled out Salazar’s central role in jury-rigging a federal panel’s scientific report to bolster flagrantly politicized conclusions. In a sane world, Salazar’s head would roll. In Obama’s world, he gets immunity."

"White House budget director Peter Orszag will leave the administration by July, according to multiple news reports. His departure after an 18-month tenure makes him the first cabinet-level Obama official to resign, after helping design a $787 billion stimulus bill that failed to live up to expectations and serving as the lead budgetary apologist for the Democrats' health-care reform bill."

"Just once, it would be nice if a president would level with Americans on energy. Barack Obama isn't that president. His speech the other night was about political damage control -- his own. It was full of misinformation and mythology. Obama held out a gleaming vision of an America that would convert to the 'clean' energy of, presumably, wind, solar and biomass. It isn't going to happen for many, many decades, if ever. 

"For starters, we won't soon end our 'addiction to fossil fuels.' Oil, coal and natural gas now supply about 85 percent of America's energy needs. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects energy consumption to grow only an average of 0.5 percent annually from 2008 to 2035, but that's still a 14 percent cumulative increase. Fossil fuel usage would increase slightly in 2035 and its share would still account for 78 percent of the total.

"Unless we shut down the economy, we need fossil fuels."

"We haven't run out of safer and more easily accessible sources of oil. We've been run off them by environmentalists. They prefer to dream green instead. 

"Obama is dreamer in chief: He wants to take us to this green future 'even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet precisely know how we're going to get there.' Here's the offer: Tax carbon, spend trillions and put government in control of the energy economy -- and he will take you he knows not where, by way of a road he knows not which.

"That's why Tuesday's speech was received with such consternation. It was so untethered from reality. The gulf is gushing, and the president is talking mystery roads to unknown destinations."

"The only reason to pass [Cap-and-Trade] legislation during a lame duck session is because the proposal is unpopular. If Democrats could sell the bill to their constituents, they would pass it before the November elections then campaign on it. Party leaders must also expect that the political will for this bill will not exist in the 112th Congress after the voters have spoken in November. In other words, the new representatives coming in are not going to vote for it - so Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama had better get the representatives who were just fired to support it before they're forced into early retirement."

"Once again, President Obama channels Oscar Wilde, who famously said the only thing he couldn't resist was temptation.

"So it is with Obama's attempt to turn the Gulf oil debacle into a reason why America should embrace his cap-and-tax energy policy.

"No matter the crisis, Obama can't resist the temptation to exploit it in his quest to grow the government."

"Obama is calling for a taxpayer rescue of the political class to which he belongs, to spare it the painful duty tens of thousands of business executives have had to perform. Private employees -- 25 million of whom are out of work, underemployed or have given up looking for jobs -- may be expendable, but government workers are not.

"As America is running a second consecutive deficit of $1.4 trillion, however, the U.S. government has no tax revenue to send to the cities and states. We would have to borrow the $50 billion from China, Japan and the Persian Gulf nations.

"Obama is thus asking Congress to deepen America's fiscal crisis and put the next generation on the hook for another $50 billion so today's mayors and governors can get an exemption from their political duty.

"Where is the justice here?"

"Late last week saw the first leaks of the administration's draft regulations for implementing the ObamaCare law -- and everything is playing out just as the critics warned.

"The 3,000-odd pages of legislation left most of the really important (and controversial) policy decisions to the regulations that government agencies were told to issue once the bill passed. Now that those regs are starting to take shape, it's clear that the Obama team is using its new power to exert tight control over the payment and delivery of all formerly 'private' health insurance.

"Critics warned that the Obama bill meant a federal takeover of health care, with Washington bureaucrats making core decisions about medical care. With ObamaCare taking shape, that's exactly what consumers are getting. Saying 'we told you so' is no consolation to those who took the president at his word."

"Any day now, after thorough interagency review, the Standing Committee for Posterior Selection will have given provisional approval for a working list of asses for POTUS to kick with an OSHA-approved shoe. Alas, final environmental-impact statements are pending. But once that hurdle is cleared, the president will focus like a laser on ass-kicking."