A quick breath up from the global economy for me and …

back home … here.

To this headline at Politico:  Obama Losing Stimulus Message War

and to this quote:

At this crucial juncture in the push to pass an economic recovery package, President Barack Obama finds himself in the most unlikely of places: He is losing the message war.

Despite Obama’s sky-high personal approval ratings, polls show support has declined for his stimulus bill since Republicans and their conservative talk-radio allies began railing against what they labeled as pork barrel spending within it.

The sheer size of it — hovering at about $900 billion — has prompted more protests that are now causing some moderate and conservative Democrats to flinch and, worse, hesitate.

and more from Today’s New York Times:

For all the saber-rattling, the fate of the bill, which is the centerpiece of President Obama’s economic agenda, seemed tied up in a meeting on Thursday in the Dirksen Senate office building, where Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, were leading an effort to cut the price tag of the bill.

Talk about your little engines that could!  I could almost enjoy this if it wasn’t so painfully important to get this right.  So far, President Obama has mailed in a letter to WAPO, scheduled a national news conference on Monday, and had a super bowl party and the senators from Maine and Nebraska remained unmoved by the charm attack!

Something tells me that this Congress is not going to take this new President very seriously if this keeps on going.  Some one remind me, here, who is the majority party?  Why are the Republicans acting more in control now than they were say, six months ago?

Senator Lindsey Graham even sounded dynamic on Fox with this little gem.

President Obama has been “AWOL” in negotiations over the economic stimulus package, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday in a scathing rebuke of the new president.

The South Carolina Republican told FOX News that Obama has not been providing leadership, and he criticized the president for giving TV interviews and writing an editorial touting the package, rather than addressing the complaints of lawmakers.

“This process stinks,” Graham told FOX News, before repeating a lot of his criticisms on the Senate floor. “We’re making this up as we go and it is a waste of money. It is a broken process, and the president, as far as I’m concerned, has been AWOL on providing leadership on something as important as this.”

How macho can one be if the senate’s most closeted log cabin Republican can manage a more masculine soundbite than President Obama?  I mean, it’s down right embarrassing.  I’m going to have to wear a papersack over my head to vote Democrat any more, if this keeps up.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written here recently, you know what I think about what needs to be done.  This is ridiculous.  Its worse than a sexfree honeymoon!  How can some one come in and screw the one big thing up so quickly?  Meanwhile, I’m planting the Obama Victory Garden this week.  It’ll save me some time in the breadlines.