For nearly a year and a half TPM has been my sanity. My place to go when none of the rest of the world is making any sense. But more and more I'm feeling like I've fallen down the rabbit hole and nothing is as it seems. Far from being my sanity, it is making me crazy.

Suddenly I find myself in the midst of a bunch of people who sound like they no longer support this President. Who in one short year are ready to feed him to the wolves. Who have little confidence in him.

Just a little over a year ago, we were all filled with hope we hadn't felt in a very long time. And within a very short time, the reality of our perilous situation has set in. This country is in trouble. Serious, serious trouble. There are storm clouds lined up for miles in every direction, with little hope of the sun peeking out anytime soon.

This President inherited a mess. A disastrous economy caused by Wall St. greed, and politicians who aided and abetted them by deregulating the financial markets. Two wars, one that was horribly mismanaged, and another that should never have been waged. A desperately divided country whose opposition party has decided the only way for them to survive as a party is for this president to fail, miserably, and will do anything and say anything to insure that he does. Lobbyists with a stranglehold on the Congress. CEOs whose only goal is  padding their wallets, with little or no concern for the little people who make them their millions/billions.

With so many challenges facing him, it is no wonder that the change he promised is not coming as quickly as many of us would like. Yet many here on these pages have accused him of being "weak," "more of the same,"  and worse. Some have already declared their intention to either stay home in 2012 or vote for some 3rd or 4th party candidate.

None of the challenges facing this President exist in a vacuum. They are all interdependent and require simultaneous action. Health care reform aids the economy. Resolution of the wars aid the economy. Lobbyists are fighting the health care reform and keeping banking regulations from being tightened once again. There is no way to just wipe the slate clean and rebulid the government from the ground up. The changes have to occur in the midst of day to day operations, with people from both sides screaming in his ear constantly...a little like trying to do a major remodel on your home while living in it at the same time. It's not pretty. But once it's done, it is  worth the aggravation.

Tonight our President gave an address about the war in Afpakistan. He didn't try to do a rah rah go, fight, win, sales pitch. He told us he was asking us to eat a crap sandwich. He didn't try to sell it as a gourmet dish. He was as straightforward as he could be, letting us know there was no good choice, and that his decision was the lesser of all the evils.

There is no doubt in my mind that many here will join with the repubs and beat him up over it. I hate these wars, and I want out now. But I realize that what I want and the reality of the situation are two different things. I trust that he is doing what he thinks is best, after getting the best information he could from many different sources. I feel his pain in making the decision to send more of our children to their deaths. I don't think he made the decision lightly. I wish he would have decided to just pull out. I think that would have been his preference. I don't believe he could.

I am not an Obama "fan." I am not an "Obamabot." I am an informed voter who made a choice to support this man for President, and I am going to support him. I will let him know if I think he doing something wrong. What I am NOT going to do is malign him or call him names, or attack his integrity.  I'm going to support him.

Our last President got eight years to screw up the country. I think this one deserves eight to try and unscrew it...