Bo Obama Learns a Few Tricks in the White House - Why Not? Everyone Else Has

Bo Obama has been learning a few tricks during his stay at the White House. Schmoozing with Oprah must be de rigeur for residents at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

Edit: Looks like the adorable video of Bo giving Michelle Obama a high five has been pulled from the internet. If I find a copy I will put it back up. I am at a loss why anyone pulled that minute long clip.

Aww how sweet. Amidst the chocolate slathered gingerbread, holiday baubles and adorable doggie tricks, Obama managed to make some news in his Oprah interview last night. No, it had nothing to do with Easy Bake Ovens.

Oprah gave him a big sloppy kiss of an interview and asks Obama to grade himself on his first year as President. He gave himself a solid B+. I just voted myself Miss America too. Unfortunately for both of us no one seems to agree.

Earlier this morning, I saw a panel discussing Obama's grade inflation on "Morning Joe". An interesting point was raised that Obama's internal polling as well as all the public polls clearly show Obama losing ground with a large portion of the electorate. Peggy Noonan made this point in her opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal commenting on Obama's rhetorical shift the middle:

If it is real—if the pivot signals a true, partial or coming shift, if it is not limited to rhetorical flurries—it is welcome news in terms of public policy. It also tells us some things. It tells us White House internal polling is probably worse than the public polls telling us the president has been losing support among independents. It tells us the mounting criticism from Republicans, conservatives and others has had a real effect. It tells us White House officials have concluded they were out on a cliff. It tells us they are calculating that after a first year of governing from the left, and winning whatever they win on health care, they believe they can persuasively shift to the center, that it will work.

The Morning Joe panel discussed the Oprah and "Sixty Minutes" interviews as a strategic move to show himself as a warm likable guy, you know, the kind you would have a beer with.  Pundit and Pundette have a great piece on how the "Sixty Minutes" interview totally misses the mark.  Obama comes across as prickly and does what he does best, point fingers.  There was unanimous consensus on the panel it's time for Obama to stop pointing fingers.  You know what they say though, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Clearly Obama feels that he can make his old tricks look like new ones;  it isn't working.   Obama needs to do more than come some rhetorical middle, and giving high fives to his gal Oprah.  He needs to start acting  like a man who was elected to lead the free world.  Obama's numbers are comparable to Reagan's who also coincidentally inherited a mess.  Did he spend four years pointing fingers at Jimmy Carter?  No, he didn't have time for that, he was too busy leading the country out of the mess.