Obama plots counter attack

Eyes on health care reform drive:

US: Once high-flying US President Barack Obama will next week launch a fightback against escalating troubles, heralding an autumn political season which could write the fate of his administration.

Obama will make a joint address to Congress on Wednesday, September 9, in an effort to shore up his stuttering health care reform drive, which took a battering in a shrill August of Republican attacks.

The announcement came after Obama, head down and unusually ignoring the cameras, trudged pensively Wednesday from the Oval Office to his helicopter, en-route to a few days rest at his Camp David retreat.

In that moment, the crisp January day when the beaming Obamas left their inaugural limousine and strolled towards the White House basking in a new political era, seemed a lifetime ago.

As it turns out, the new political era, with its brutal fights over health care reform, the economy and foreign policy, is much like the old one.

Obama's approval rating threatens to slump below 50 percent faster than all but one elected president in modern history, posing the question of whether the transformative presidency he promised will be a mere mirage.

The president's political woes are a symptom of the "ambition of his agenda and the turbulence of the moment," said Bruce Buchanan, professor of government at the University of Texas.

"This is what you would expect with this agenda and the kind of political atmosphere that we have now, which I would describe as toxic.

"All these Republicans want to do now is hand him a failure experience."

Such a failure could severely cramp Obama's room for political maneuver and spell disaster for the rest of his program.

Obama's latest Gallup approval ratings stood at 54 percent on Wednesday, up from a low of 50 percent but down from a high of 69 percent in February.

Should he fall below 50 percent before November, it would represent the second fastest drop of an elected president to below-majority approval since World War II, behind Bill Clinton (four months).

Washington, Thursday, AFP