"With 16 months -- at least -- left in the Obama presidency, the law of diminishing returns has kicked in hard. The president’s approval rating stands at 39 percent in one major poll, and even the Congressional Black Caucus is starting to bail on him. 'We’re supportive of the president, but we’re getting tired,' Rep. Maxine Waters told a Detroit audience Tuesday.  

"Obama’s slide may be good political news for conservatives, but it’s extremely bad for the country. 

"Realistically, the economy won’t materially improve over the next year or so, no matter how many bus rides Obama takes. Unemployment will likely remain well over 8 percent, and the debt-ceiling deal will do little or nothing to solve our economic woes. It’s going to take the next election before we can begin to start repairing the damage."

"The Obama administration is finally going to focus on jobs -- again. Jobs, jobs, jobs. And nothing says jobs like food stamps, unemployment insurance and a shiny new federal department of ... yes, jobs! 

"Some of you may find President Barack Obama's three-day campaign bus tour through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois a considerable downer. Not that it's the president's fault. If it weren't for Japanese earthquakes, unpatriotic Republicans, Arab springs, European welfare states collapsing, market fluctuations, Lady Luck's being a complete witch -- you know, existence -- this mess could have been squared away months ago."

"Yesterday, while Texas Gov. Rick Perry was campaigning at the Iowa State Fair, a reporter from Politico.com asked him whether he was armed. Perry, a known gun owner and enthusiast, refused to answer the question. 

"That’s why it’s called ‘concealed,’" Perry told the reporter."

"[I]t’s possible that the Republican nominee, if he or she avoids stumbles and conditions remain as they are, can win just by running against the failed policies of the Obama Democrats. But that’s not necessarily enough to govern successfully. ... 

"Republicans are winning the argument over the Obama policies. But they aren’t yet making the strongest case for their own."

"Of all the endlessly repeated conventional wisdom in today’s Washington, the most lazy, stupid and ubiquitous is that our politics is broken. On the contrary. Our political system is working well (I make no such claims for our economy), indeed, precisely as designed — profound changes in popular will translated into law that alters the nation’s political direction. ... 

"The conventional complaint is that the process was ugly. Big deal. You want beauty? Go to a museum. Democratic politics was never meant to be an exercise in aesthetics. ... 

"Moreover, without this long ugly process, the debt issue wouldn’t even be on the table. ..."

"DES MOINES, Iowa -- Things look different in the Midwest. Back in Washington, people are talking about President Barack Obama's poor showing this past week. (Did you see that Maureen Dowd has turned against him?) In Iowa, they're focused on the state Republicans' presidential straw poll in Ames next Saturday. And in Wisconsin, they just got through counting the votes in a recall election that has great national significance. ... 

"Wisconsin Republicans won, and [GOP Presidential Candidate Michele] Bachmann has been surging despite the fact that their opponents raised and spent much more money and despite the ridicule and rancor of the chattering classes. They are evidence that out here in the Midwest, and in the nation generally, there are a lot of little people -- somebodies -- who want to see big government reined in."

"Unions Lose Again in Wisconsin:  It looks as if the organized labor movement has failed to recall enough Wisconsin Republicans to regain control of the state senate. That’s a) in an off-year election where union turnout usually makes the difference b) in famously progressive Wisconsin c) after spending many millions d) with a nationwide media and organizing push e) when labor had a galvanizing issue in Gov. Scott Walker’s direct assault on the institutional collective bargaining power of public employees, which led to a dramatic walkout by Democrats."

"Much of the media has spent the past decade obsessing about the malapropisms of George W. Bush, the ignorance of Sarah Palin, and perhaps soon the stupidity of Rick Perry. Nothing is so typical of middling minds than to harp on the intellectual deficiencies of the slightly less smart and considerably more successful.

"But it takes actual smarts to understand that glibness and self-belief are not sufficient proof of genuine intelligence. Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does."

"As the nation mourns its loss, just as it has the losses of 10 years of a war it did not choose and which it cannot avoid, the greatest thing that civilians can do is remember that their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren are what they are because of warriors flying through mountain passes half a world away."

"America’s recovery from a balance-sheet recession was always bound to be sluggish and fragile. And its woes need not fell the world economy, thanks to the strength of emerging markets. But the thoughtlessness of the debt deal -- notably its failure to tackle any of the real sources of America’s fiscal problems, such as entitlement spending -- raises a bigger worry. Can the country's politicians, so starkly polarised and so willing to gamble with the economy, be trusted not to turn what was always an inevitable period of hardship into longer-term stagnation? ...

"If America does manage to avoid recession and slowly begins to pull out of this mire, it will be testimony to its underlying strengths. It still has huge advantages over other rich countries: a younger, less-taxed population, a more innovative economy and, for now at least, the dollar as the global reserve currency. If only it had the political leaders to match, its chance of avoiding recession would be far better than one in two."