America's Change of Heart Over Obama

Some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Mr. Unpopular

Time magazine has an article focusing on how Barack Obama became Mr. Unpopular. The author writes "a sense of disappointment, bordering on betrayal, has been growing across the country, especially in moderate states like Indiana where people now openly say they didn't quite understand the president they voted for in 2008."

The article notes the president's Gallup approval rating has dropped from a high of 68-percent and now hovers in the mid-40s -- meaning at least one in four Americans has changed his or her mind.

Former Democratic campaign donor Fred Ferlic in Indiana is one of them, saying he plans to vote Republican this year because he thinks the president is "trying to Europeanize us and the Europeans are going the other way."

Under Fire

Some gun rights advocates are upset over a reversal by the Obama administration. Last year it approved a plan by the South Korean government to sell nearly a million antique M1 rifles to gun collectors here in the States. The rifles were used by U.S. soldiers during the Korean War.

A State Department spokesman says the administration's decision to now ban the sale was based on concerns the guns could fall into the wrong hands. But gun rights advocates say M1 rifles are already legal in the U.S. and they note that anyone buying a gun from South Korea would still have to go through the standard background check.

The National Rifle Association's chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, called the administration's decision, "a de facto gun ban, courtesy of Hillary Clinton's State Department."

Left Out

The British Broadcasting Corporation's director general says there was a "massive left-wing bias at the BBC."

Mark Thompson tells The New Statesman, "in the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left... the organization did struggle then with impartiality."

Thompson says now however that is no longer the case because a different generation of journalists works there.