Midterm elections are just another way for grumpy, old, usually white people to register their discontent. The President's party has lost ground or been trounced in all but two of the last 21 midterms.
The exceptions were 2002, when the American people rewarded Bush Jnr for being in charge when al-Qaeda knocked down the Twin Towers, and 1998, when they sent the message that they didn't want Bill Clinton to be impeached over the Lewinsky scandal.
And Obama's poor approval rating is no surprise given his ability to make many conservatives take leave of their senses.
A 2010 Harris poll found 22 per cent of Republican voters believed Obama was the Antichrist, 38 per cent were convinced he was doing many of the things Hitler did and 51 per cent thought he wanted to transfer US sovereignty to a global government.
As historian and lifelong conservative Bruce Bartlett pointed out, all this proves is that between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of Republicans "are either insane or mind-numbingly stupid".
In the wider sense, the writing-off of Obama reflects the increasing tendency to downplay the significance of achievements and bestow significance on a range of activities that are exceedingly minor if not non-achievements.
Take Nick Clegg, leader of the UK's Liberal Democrats Party. During the 2010 election campaign, he took part in a debate with then prime minister Gordon Brown and prime minister-to-be David Cameron. The consensus was that Clegg "won" the debate.
Within days polls were showing that the politician formerly known as Nick Who? was Britain's most popular political figure since Winston Churchill - all because he managed to be glibly personable in a televised debate.
After the election, the Tories and Lib Dems formed a coalition and Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister. A poll in June showed he's now the least popular party leader in modern British history.
This tendency to discount achievements is partly a consequence of the media setting the bar absurdly high - even when a slam dunk is simply not possible, anything less is deemed a failure.
Thus Obama is invidiously compared to Kremlin chess master Vladimir Putin. The admiration for Putin, a sinister figure who operates with impunity because his political opponents are mostly incarcerated and his media critics mostly dead, is nauseating to behold, a bit like watching women old enough to know better swooning over the domineering cad/hero in a romance novel who doesn't take "no" for an answer.
With regard to Ukraine, for instance, Obama's position is that he's not prepared to instigate World War III (the nuclear version) over a country that has been fought over, carved up and ruled by foreign powers since the 13th century and has existed as an independent state only since 1991. As everyone except perhaps the unfortunate Ukrainians agrees with this stance, it's bizarre that his handling of the situation attracts so much criticism.
In a rare example of swimming against the anti-Obama tide, The Times columnist Philip Collins recently listed Obama's achievements: ending two wars, authorising the mission to eliminate Osama bin Laden, hauling the US and therefore world economy back from the brink of depression, reducing the US deficit and unemployment, eliminating tax cuts for the rich -- and his crowning achievement, turning the century-old Democrat Party dream of national health insurance into a reality.
This amounts to a substantial legacy. And he's not finished yet.
