President Obama and the Economy

Well, the stock market is getting pounded, down another 23 points Tuesday. After a nice run-up last year, the Dow is down almost 900 points over the last three weeks. And along with the market's fall comes a drop in President Obama's job approval rating.

On Tuesday, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll has just 42 percent of Americans approving. Fifty-six percent do not like the way President Obama is doing his job.

So even with problems like the oil spill and illegal immigration, it is still the economy that drives public opinion.

The Obama administration believes the U.S. economy is getting better and that the chaos in Europe is behind the stock market tumble.

But Americans are worried. The president has been in office for 16 months. When he arrived, unemployment was at 7.7 percent. Now it's 9.9 percent.

Also, Mr. Obama has spent billions bailing out failing companies and imposing social justice through things like universal health care. Meantime, the USA now owes almost $13 trillion.

The reason Greece, Spain and other European countries are in trouble is that they are bankrupt. The reason America is not bankrupt is that the Chinese and others continue to invest here, giving the feds the money to pay the interest on our enormous debt, but that could stop. Also, we are not paying down what we owe, so there are obviously serious economic problems in America.

If the economy does not drastically improve over the next few months, the Democrats will lose control of Congress, and Mr. Obama will be on the defensive.

Remember, the presidential campaign of 2012 will start in January 2011, just seven months from now.

The compelling question is whether Barack Obama will stop governing from the left because it is clear the country cannot afford to expand the government and entitlements anymore. Just like California, Mr. Obama will have to start cutting — and cutting big — very soon.

If the president raises taxes, the economy could get much worse. So the president is, indeed, caught between Barack and a hard place.

And that's "The Memo."

Pinheads & Patriots

Society person Paris Hilton is often the object of derision, but now she's doing something good. Ms. Hilton is teaming up with the USO to promote a program called "Songs for Soldiers," whereby our troops in the field would get MP3 players so they can have some tunes in their downtime, always a good thing. For this, Paris Hilton is a patriot.

Click here to watch "Pinheads & Patriots"!

On the pinhead front, the English language is under assault in Great Britain, of all places. This report by a sports correspondent is making the rounds:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) — Jack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's on the cutting edge of broadcasting, isn't he?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

I understood every word of that. The guy was talking about soccer, but he's still a pinhead.