President Obama’s job approval rating took another dive, putting him underwater for the first time in a Marist poll out today.

Just 44% of the country approves of the work Obama is doing, while 47% don’t like what they see.

The unfortunate job assessment comes as Americans still find the commander-in-chief likable, with 50% rating him favorably, and 44% viewing him negatively. And they still believe President Bush is to blame for the dismal economy.

Only 29% of voters blame Obama for the economy, while 62% agree Bush left that problem on his desk.

“With this part of voters’ mindset, it’s no wonder the White House would like to make 2010 a choice between President Obama and past GOP policies,” said Lee Miringoff, director of The Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “Not a referendum on the president.”

Still, people don’t like the way the President has been doing things, and think his policies are not change they can believe in.

Forty-seven percent of voters say Obama has not lived up to their expectations, with just 42% saying he has.And a narrow plurality — 38% — think Obama’s change has been bad, wit 37% thinking it’s been good.

And while Obama has been reaching out to the public and the GOP in several appearances lately, it doesn’t seem to have done much good, with independents continuing to abandon him, and Republicans remaining 80% against him.

“If attracting Independents and bipartisanship are the aim, then the President clearly has a lot of ground to cover in year two,” said Miringoff.

Not that any of the potential presidential contenders pose a threat to Obama this far from 2012. The survey found that in a “very hypothetical” contest, the President would get 44% to Sarah Palin’s 29% and Mayor Bloomberg’s 15%.

A videotaped speech that Harold Ford gave to the National Rifle Association strongly defending gun rights seems to have disappeared.

In it, besides extolling the virtues of the NRA’s gun safety programs, Ford lambastes authorities for seizing weapons in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and slams D.C.’s gun control laws.

But that video no longer exists on the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action Web site or its YouTube channel. We searched for it this morning, and were only able to find the below cached page.

The video itself is gone, although a text excerpt remains.

Former Democratic Tennessee Representative Harold Ford, Jr. lent his support via a videotaped message and offered his opinion on pending gun legislation. “Right where you are today in our nation’s capital, law-abiding residents can’t keep a gun to defend themselves in their homes. That’s wrong,” he said. As a congressman, Ford was a co-sponsor of the D.C. Personal Protection Act. “The Bill of Rights applies to everyone, and the last time I checked, the District of Columbia was a part of that great country. It’s out of our hands now and let’s hope that the courts side with us.”

The speech is still mentioned on the NRA’s Web site, and the other videos are still there from the NRA’s Celebration of American Values Conference in 2007, including Bill Richardson’s.

The notes on the cached video page point out that the text of the speech can be found on the NRA-ILA Web site. The other speeches are still there, but not Ford’s.

We asked the NRA this morning what happened, but they haven’t gotten back to us yet.

For the curious, here’s the speech, captured elsewhere, which only goes to show once again that it’s really hard for politicians to change positions in the YouTube age.

Not that Kirsten Gillibrand hasn’t shifted on guns. She has. It’s just tougher when people can see you being so adamant, and you haven’t come up with a new rationale yet. Gillibrand says hers comes from talking to people in the city who have fallen victim to gun violence.

The Democratic National Committee isn’t letting blizzard-like conditions storm warnings to keep its members attending the party’s “Winter Meeting” in Washington from hearing from President Obama tomorrow.

“We are monitoring the situation, but for now full steam ahead,” DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan tells The Mouth this afternoon. “It may not be ideal conditions that Michael Steele had in Hawaii, but we’re Democrats. We’re tougher.”

Obama is scheduled to speak tomorrow morning, as the brunt of the storm sweeps through the nation’s capital.

Most of the DNC guests are already in town for meetings, so travel won’t be a problem, even as area airports announce plans to shut down today. Most of the out-of-towners are staying at the Capitol Hilton, the site of the DNC gathering and just minutes away from the White House.

Pride is the other issue in play. Like a lot of transplanted DC residents who originally hail from snow country (add Sen. Scott Brown to that list), Obama likes to flaunt his Chicago winter weather creds and mock the snow panic every time a flake falls in Washington.

Washington and Wall Street were both caught off guard by today’s unemployment figures, but President Obama says he’s hesitant to crow over January’s decline in the rate of joblessness.

Nationwide unemployment fell from 10% in December to 9.7% last month, the Labor Department reported.

“We received additional news suggesting that we are climbing out of the huge hole that we found ourselves in … Now, these numbers, while positive, are a cause for hope, but not celebration, because far too many of our neighbors and friends and family are still out of work,” Obama said during another event highlighting his strategies to spur small- to mid-sized businesses to create jobs.

“Understanding that these numbers will continue to fluctuate for months to come, these are welcome, if modest, signs of progress along the road to recovery,” The President noted to reporters, as he toured Oasis Mechanical Contractors in Lanham, Md., a small business in the DC suburbs.

Obama was joined by Small Business Administrator Karen Mills. They announced plans to expand SBA loans to companies like Oasis, a green industry employer that installs and services HVAC systems.

The President emphasized it’s still troubling that 20,000 jobs were lost a month ago, though he reminded the friendly audience it was a significant improvement from the more than 800,000 people who lost jobs in January 2009, when he took office.

“We can’t be satisfied when another 20,000 have joined the ranks and millions more Americans are under-employed, picking up what work they can,” Obama acknowledged.

The good news for Main Street, meanwhile, helped trigger a mid-afternoon selloff on Wall Street.

Anthony Weiner jokes on the Daily Show, “I could have beaten Bloomberg like a rented mule.”

And, is Joe Lieberman a d—-? “Yes.”

Also, Stewart notes Weiner’s larger, more commanding profile since the health care debate (and since they were roommates at some point in the ’80s.) “I don’t know what you’ve done with Anthony Weiner, the one that I knew. But this new cat, this guy right here in front of me? it gives me nochas.” That’d be something along the lines of pride and joy, at least as we understand the word.