If Presidential politics were Major League Baseball, some frustrated general manager somewhere would be sending Barack Obama back to the minors for more seasoning:

By DENNIS CONRAD Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons ''in any circumstance.''

''I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance,'' Obama said, with a pause, ''involving civilians.'' Then he quickly added, ''Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table.''

Gosh, Senator, it’s not that tough. Try this: “As president of the United States, I would do whatever is necessary to defend the American people. We all pray that we’ll never need to use nuclear weapons. But I would do what is necessary in my role as Commander in Chief to protect this country.”

Obama’s lack of seriousness on global affairs is somewhat mystifying. He’s not a dumb guy. This isn’t Joe Biden who keeps saying stupid things. The only conceivable explanation for why Obama is so nave and out if his depth when discussing geo-political matters is that in his many years as a community organizer, he never gave them much thought. You don’t exactly need to be a keen observer of modern power to know America’s nuclear deterrent is somewhat important to our safety. What kind of serious politician would glibly and unilaterally yank that deterrent off the table?

The polls paint an ominous picture for Obama. According to the latest Rasmussen numbers, he trails Hillary Clinton by the healthy margin of 43% to 21%. Relatively speaking, that’s the good news for Obama. The real bad news for Obama is that 82% of Democrats view Hillary favorably, only 66% view Obama favorably. It gets worse. Only 16% view Hillary unfavorably while 30% view Obama as unfavorably.

If you do a little simple addition, there aren’t a lot of “I don’t knows” in either sample. By political standards, Hillary’s been around since the earth cooled. Her numbers aren’t going anywhere. The Democrats love her. Obama’s comparatively poor positive/negative ranking means many Democrats have found him wanting.

Right now, he looks like an opportunist who is seeking a job that he doesn’t know how to perform simply because it’s available. There are a lot of mature and responsible people who vote Democratic, even though the Daily Kos has become the face of the party. The mature and responsible contingent probably wants to like Obama. He’s making that real tough on them.

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