President Obama’s job approval numbers will dip below 50% for the first time today in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, according to a Gallup official.

“Gallup Daily tracking results just in. Obama will be below 50% for the first time when we update our numbers at 1:00 p.m.,” wrote Gallup.com managing news editor Lymari Morales on Twitter.

His approval numbers have bounced down to the 50% mark several times, driven by weaker support from independents and Republicans, but hadn’t crossed it.

The man in the White House is no longer a political dynamo. Maybe he will become one again, but for now, he’s just an ordinary politician, fighting to make sure that people like him.

Just like all other politicians, as a matter of fact.

The Obama Administration’s approach to trade policy has been nothing short of depressing. It will leave the United States with a much smaller economic presence in Asia–as Phil Levy references, it is the Obama Administration, not the Bush Administration, that has ditched Asia–and it will cost the United States in terms of economic growth. For an Administration that has pledged itself to reviving the American economy, Team Obama is overlooking and ignoring a surefire way to do so by allowing a once-robust American trade policy to wither on the vine.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is touting the Senate’s newest health-care bill as costing $849 billion over 10 years. But this uses the same accounting trick as past versions: 99 percent of the costs don’t kick in until the fifth year of that “10 year” period. And the true 10-year costs are well over twice what Reid’s advertising: $1.8 billion.

The Democrats cite the bills’ projected costs from 2010-19. Yet, as the Congressional Budget Office reports, the bill would cost just $9 billion total from 2010 through 2013 — versus $147 billion in 2016 alone. In the first 40 percent of what the Democrats are calling the bill’s “first 10 years,” only 1 percent of its costs would yet have hit.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is touting the Senate’s newest health-care bill as costing $849 billion over 10 years. But this uses the same accounting trick as past versions: 99 percent of the costs don’t kick in until the fifth year of that “10 year” period. And the true 10-year costs are well over twice what Reid’s advertising: $1.8 billion.

The Democrats cite the bills’ projected costs from 2010-19. Yet, as the Congressional Budget Office reports, the bill would cost just $9 billion total from 2010 through 2013 — versus $147 billion in 2016 alone. In the first 40 percent of what the Democrats are calling the bill’s “first 10 years,” only 1 percent of its costs would yet have hit.

One of the supposed advantages of health care reform was that it was supposed to cut costs. That clearly is not happening under the Reid bill. Without the promised cost controls, what is the point of voting for the bill?

UPDATE: Michael Cannon’s commentary doesn’t give fiscal hawks any more reason for good news.

The covering for Holder has already begun. Patrick Leahy is now busy telling people that there is no need whatsoever to interrogate Osama bin Laden if we capture him; as if American intelligence agents would not have an interest in seeing whether bin Laden spills the beans on any other operations that al Qaeda may be undertaking against the United States. I recognize that Leahy has to spin on behalf of the Attorney-General, but he doesn’t have to insult the intelligence of the public in the process, does he?

President Barack Obama’s job approval rating is 48 - 42 percent, the first time he has slipped below the 50 percent threshold nationally, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Support for the war in Afghanistan and approval of President Obama’s handling of the war also is down in the last month, and Republican support for the war is more than twice as strong as Democratic support.

[. . .]

“Although President Obama’s job approval rating is below 50 percent for the first time nationally, it is not statistically different from his 50 percent approval rating in October. Nevertheless, in politics symbols matter and this is not a good symbol for the White House,” said Brown. “Moreover, the percentage who approve of the way he is handling the economy has dropped from a split 47 - 46 percent approval in October to 52 - 43 percent disapproval today.”

Sullivan’s attitude is too cheap for words. It’s clear he has never heard of the literary facility of “implication” . How stupid can you get to hide behind it. This person should be in a freshman english class in…high school.

Sullivan’s obsession with Palin makes Ahab himself look sane and reasonable. I mean, read this:

This is only the second time in its nearly ten-year history that the Dish has gone silent. The reason now is the same as the reason then. When dealing with a delusional fantasist like Sarah Palin, it takes time to absorb and make sense of the various competing narratives that she tells about her life. There are so many fabrications and delusions in the book, mixed in with facts, that just making sense of it - and comparing it with objective reality as we know it, and the subjective reality she has previously provided - is a bewildering task. She is a deeply disturbed person which makes this work of fiction and fact all the more challenging to read.

Three sentences later, we get this:

We want to be fair to her, and to her family, and to the innocent people she has brought into the spotlight.

Aha! So Palin is a “delusional fantasist,” she is peddling “fabrications and delusions,” and she is a “deeply disturbed person” who produced a “work of fiction,” but fear not! Sullivan wants “to be fair to her, and to her family.”

Isn’t the Atlantic embarrassed by now about its association with Andrew Sullivan, who has clearly gone off the rails? Isn’t it time to save what little is left of the prestige of the magazine by firing him? And I write this as a decidedly non-Palin fan; indeed, the two of them deserve one another.

I give you again the definitive biography of Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE: Ace comments as only Ace can.