Morning Must Reads — Meet the new boss…

The left is grumbling – Obama could not have abided the insults of McChrystal and his team, especially since they labeled Obama and his civilian team as weak and foolish, but they are growing to hate the war more and more by the day.

While Petraeus will no doubt be confirmed as commander, the hearings will give rise to more liberal complaints about an endless war. They are getting the sinking feeling that July 2011 will come and go with the war still raging.

The question for Obama’s war coalition, though, is whether the strategy in Afghanistan, designed by Petraeus, can actually work given the limitations imposed by the White House.

Writers Alissa Rubin and Dexter Filkins explain:

“General Petraeus will take command of the Afghanistan campaign six months into an 18-month-long strategy that will almost certainly have to show significant progress for Mr. Obama to continue. Even before then, in December, Mr. Obama and his advisers will conduct a ‘strategic assessment’ that will serve as a major progress report.

After that, it is anyone’s guess what Mr. Obama will do.

Some members of General McChrystal’s staff were not so optimistic. When a reporter recently suggested to a senior American officer here that he might, in the end, run out of time, he did not hesitate to answer.

‘I think you may be right,’ the officer said.”

Wall Street Journal — Confidence Waning in Obama, U.S. Outlook

First the caveat: Anything could happen and change the trajectory of the fall elections.

Now the prediction: Democrats are going to get worked like a job this fall.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is the industry standard, and the latest edition tells us that Republican voters are fired up, Democratic voters are dispirited and independents wouldn’t mind giving the other guys a try.

And with skepticism growing about the president’s abilities, the Democrats’ last hope to mitigate disaster – Deus ex Obama – has faded away.

For the first time since 2002, the survey has shown in two consecutive rounds a general preference for a Republican-controlled Congress.

Most shocking is the collapse in interest and ardor among Democrats, liberals, Obama voters and young voters. The Obama coalition has checked out and Republicans, conservatives and older voters are fired up and ready to go.

The green shoots of optimism for Democrats in April have been squished by the oil spill, the faltering recovery and the mounting fears about the deficit.

These numbers are so bad that they will change Democratic strategy. They know that numbers rarely change much from June to November and will now increase their panic levels accordingly.

(My column about what this wild election climate is doing to the GOP is here.)

–Presidential job approval is down to 45 percent from 48 percent last month and 50 percent in January.

–Obama’s personal approval negatives are up 6 points since before the spill to 40 percent (47 percent still hold positive personal opinions).

–Highest wrong track number (62 percent) since the fall of 2008.

–The most attractive position that a candidate can hold is supporting spending cuts – 69 percent like candidates who support cuts.

–The percent of people who “strongly relate” to President Obama dropped from 35 in October to 29 today.

–The president dropped across the board on his personal characteristics of leadership, honesty, compassion, etc.

–Obama once said Hillary Clinton was “likable enough,” but is now 8 points less likeable than he was in January (64 percent down from 72 percent).

–The biggest drop for Obama was on his ability to handle a crisis – down 11 points from January to 40 percent.

Wall Street Journal — U.S., Louisiana Clash Over Berms

The oil leak is back under partial containment today after a blowout left the full force of oil – maybe 65,000 barrels a day – spewing out on Wednesday.

But the battle that’s shaping up now is between the federal government and the leaders of the Gulf States, save new Democrat Charlie Crist.

The administration served notice of appeal on the decision to toss out the “arbitrary and capricious” Obama moratorium on other, compliant deepwater drilling and is now asking judge to keep the ban in lace until the appeal is written, heard and decided.

With thousands out of work from the ban, the governors are getting desperate.

Now, the showdown over berms made from sand and silt dredged from the sea floor.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has been fighting to erect the impediments to the spill reaching Louisiana marshes and won approval to go ahead. He’s been sucking and shooting silt like a machine gun and even hard guardsmen dropping sandbags out of helicopters.

The Obama environmental team is worried about long-term erosion to wetlands that could be caused by aggressive dredging. They slow-walked Jindal’s requests, eventually gave in a bit, and now, to hear Jindal tell it, are reneging.

“Tom Strickland, the U.S. Interior Department’s assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, said Louisiana officials had been building the berms in a way that violated conditions set out by the Obama administration when it approved the berm plan in late May. He said the state was dredging sand to build the berms from an offshore area that is too fragile, potentially intensifying erosion of the Chandeleur Islands, a chain of barrier islands the berms are designed in part to protect.

‘You don’t want to destroy the village to save the village,’ Mr. Strickland said in a call with reporters. ‘It’s a question of whether we’re going to impair that island chain in a way that it may not ever be able to be restored.’

The Hill — U.S. isolated on spending at G-20

Dmitry Medvedev will be with President Obama at the White House today. But before he came to meet Obama, the pocket Putin went to Silicon Valley to meet with the boys from Google and tout Russia’s new embrace of free-markets, the rule of law, not imprisoning industrialists who disagree with the government, etc.

The point is that Putin/Medvedev see the U.S. weakening and thinks it has a chance to bring some of our wealth creating horsepower to Mother Russia. Based on the sliding standards for regulator predictability here, there are more than a few businessmen willing to risk a little prison time in Russia.

For Obama, the meeting is part of the run up to this weekend’s G-20 in Toronto, at which the U.S. will keep up the pressure for global indebtedness as the only way to avoid the next recession. With the grown ups in Europe already slashing their spending, Obama and fellow deficit dove Tim Geithner are finding little interest in their Global Stimulus II proposal.

A better strategy may have been to focus on keeping the Russians and the Chinese from not eating our lunch. As writer Ian Swanson explains, the spending push has been a colossal dud already.

“Germany, France and Great Britain have all launched austerity campaigns designed to reduce public debt. They’re motivated in part by the Greek debt crisis, which continues to scare countries across Europe… Japan has also introduced a strategy to reduce its budget deficit, while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is hosting the summit in Toronto, has challenged G-20 members to cut their deficits in half.”

Financial Times — Gillard replaces Rudd as Australian PM

From popular new kid to national goat in two years, it was a bad run for the first liberal prime minister in Australia in 11 years.

Kevin Rudd was sacked by his own party Wednesday after public anger over a draconian tax on Australia’s dominant mining industry caused a panic in his coalition. He was replaced by Julia Gillard, who has promised to work with the mining industry to find a solution.

Writer Elizabeth Fry explains that it may not be enough to keep the libs in power.

“The fall from grace is staggering given that Mr Rudd was one of Australia’s most popular prime ministers in his first two years in power after his election in 2007, which ended 11 years of centre-right rule.

However, his autocratic leadership style, his retreat over climate change policy – which he called the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’ – and policy mishaps with refugees caused a collapse in voter support. Towards the end of his tenure, voters came to view Mr Rudd as all spin and no substance.

While Ms Gillard is regarded as a more consultative leader, she is locked into the policy decisions the government has already made, limiting her ability to distance herself from them. With a general election expected within months, she is facing a huge task.”

Portland Oregonian — Portland woman says Al Gore groped her in hotel room

The former vice president has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today about the need for more corporate responsibility, but it is the account of his 2006 run-in with a massage therapist at a Portland hotel that is getting all the reads today.

Gore, in town for a global warming talk, had the woman to is room for a late-night massage, that much is agreed. After that, though, stories differ. She tells the tale of Gore drunkenly forcing himself on her, the Gore camp denies anything untoward happened.

She complained to police at the time but declined to file a police report until 2009, at which time she unloaded on Gore and, apparently, also undertook a civil suit.

Also amazing – the Oregonian had the details of the police report but didn’t publish them until they got stampeded by the National Enquirer. Wow.

Writer Maxine Bernstein plays catch-up on the paper’s own story.

“According to a lengthy transcript of the woman’s Jan. 8, 2009, statement to a Portland detective, the therapist said she arrived in the suite about 11 p.m. Earlier that evening, Gore addressed a near-capacity crowd in the Rose Garden’s Theater of the Clouds, telling the audience that man-made global climate change is the most important moral challenge of our time. She said Gore changed into a bathrobe, spoke of his grueling travel schedule and need to relax and told her to call him “Al.”

While giving Gore an abdominal massage, she said he demanded that she go lower and soon grabbed her right hand and shoved it under the sheet.

“I felt like I was dancing on the edge of a razor,” she told Detective Molly Daul.

She tried to use an acupressure technique to relax Gore and thought she may have nearly put him to sleep. She went into the bathroom to wash up and came out to pack up.

That’s when, she says, Gore wrapped her in an “inescapable embrace” and fondled her back, buttocks and breasts as she was trying to break down her massage table.”

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