Ahead of President Obama‘s address to a joint session of Congress, the White House has released excerpts of the speech: (via email from The White House)

Excerpts of the President’s Speech on the American Jobs Act

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll released today reveals that more than half of Americans surveyed now disapprove of the job performance by President Obama. Roughly six out of ten have a negative view on the White House efforts to help the economy and create jobs. The only possible solace that the administration can take from this poll is that those polled still blame the GOP more than the president.

President Barack Obama used today’s Labor Day address to preview Thursday’s jobs speech and to ask the Republicans in Congress to put country before party. He did not, to the dismay of many, address Teamster head Jimmy Hoffa Jr.‘s remarks from earlier in the day wherein he rallied union workers to war with the Tea Party.

On Meet the Press today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters called for President Obama to take a more forceful approach to a jobs program, and likely made Republicans drop their jaws with the amount of money she argued the United States should invest in such a plan.

On ABC’s This Week today, Senator Jim DeMint went after President Obama for his upcoming speech this week on jobs, asking for a written proposal that can be calculated by the CBO instead of an address by the president to Congress.

As far as President Obama’s popularity has fallen, it is mostly a given that there are strong Democratic elements that would never abandon him. While this likely remains true based on the candidates running in 2012 alone, last night Keith Olbermann echoed the views of some on the left who feel abandoned by the President. For Olbermann, the last straw was a push to not implement EPA corporate smog regulations until 2013. In an extensive rant against the President, Olbermann reduced the reasons to support him to “What are you going to do, vote for Rick Perry?”

Newly-minted MSNBC host Al Sharpton updated viewers on the latest details from Speechgate 2011: The Incredible One-Day Saga Of A Minor Scheduling Issue, and wondered if “John Boehner [has] been the problem all along” in dealings between the White House and House Republicans, and not necessarily the tea party members of Congress.

On America’s Newsroom this morning, GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich weighed in on President Barack Obama‘s … recent scheduling issues… and the President’s decision to ultimately reschedule his jobs speech following a push from House Speaker John Boehner and other prominent Republicans.

Gingrich did take care to note that, as a Packers fan, the Thursday night scheduling still isn’t ideal for him, but that he’ll make sure to watch during commercial breaks.

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz devoted some time Wednesday evening to, naturally, the kerfuffle between Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner on the scheduling of the President’s upcoming jobs speech. “The President has caved,” said Schultz, driving home the notion that the White House’s originally requested date — which just so happened to be the same day as a GOP presidential debate — is part of a high stakes game between Democrats and Republicans.

The conflict between President Obama and Speaker John Boehner over the Speaker’s unprecedented rejection of the President’s request to address a joint session of Congress on Sept. 7 has been resolved. The White House released a statement which maintained that the Speaker had been “consulted” about the date in advance of the President’s request, but that the President has agreed to Boehner’s preferred, post-debate date of September 8.

On The Last Word Wednesday night, host Lawrence O’Donnell invited guests Richard Wolffe and John Heilemann to discuss House Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans’ response regarding Barack Obama‘s request to address a joint session of Congress the day following a GOP presidential debate.

The White House surprised a lot of people today when it announced that the President had asked to address a joint session of congress to discuss a plan to lower unemployment and improve a stagnant economy. Perhaps more surprising than the joint session request was that it conflicted with a previously scheduled GOP presidential debate set to air on (and hosted by) NBC News. Well it is now being reported that that Speaker John Boehner has told President Obama to delay his joint session speech one day.

Earlier today, the White House announced that President Obama is calling for a joint session of the U.S. Congress to deliver his plans to address a stagnant economy and high jobless rate. Given the heightened and bipartisan calls for the administration’s plan to address these issues, this would be big news on its own, but the fact that the White House set the date for the speech on the same evening as a planned GOP Presidential debate has added an intriguingly nuanced level of political gamesmanship that’s been noticeably absent of late from the Obama administration.

Rachel Maddow tried to take a gander at understanding Mitt Romney‘s political strategy tonight, and it took her all the way to Gilligan’s Island. Maddow tried to make sense of why, in this economy, Romney would say things like “corporations are people” and announce his real net worth, and came to the conclusion that his “inherent awkwardness” was impossible to avoid. To that end, his campaign was going “the full Thurston”– just being open about his wealth, like sitcom character Thurston Howard III.

Last week, Times columnist Joe Nocera asked a simple question: what is business waiting for? Why isn’t the private sector making a determined push to put people to work? He identified a few factors: the focus on short-term profits and concern about being at a competitive disadvantage; The Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson took a wonkier look at the question. This weekend, the Times ran some responses that provide more insight.

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters is touring the country with the Congressional Black Caucus this month, and it is becoming increasingly apparent she has taken upon herself the mantle of representing the Congressional hard-left, making a splash this week by quipping that she and her constituents were “getting tired” of the President compromising, and following up in the weekend by simply telling the Tea Party to “go straight to hell!”

August is turning out to be a month dedicated in the media to hammering President Obama on his jobs policy– which, coincidentally, he has yet to release in any detail. On today’s Meet the Press, Robert Gibbs argued that the President had his hands tied by Congress on the jobs issue and that the economy was in too dire a situation to solve immediately, but host Savannah Guthrie continued to push him, reminding him polls showed the American people dissatisfied with the President’s performance and yearning for a concrete plan.

Ready for a trip down Memory Lane? Face the Nation held an interestingly anachronistic debate today on the Obama jobs program between former RNC chair Ed Gillespie and former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe, where the two quarreled over the optics of President Obama’s vacation and Congress’ obstinacy in passing a jobs bill. Host Norah O’Donnell led the discussion, wherein the two agreed the time for talk was over, but, predictably, differed on who exactly was doing the useless talking.

As far as hyper-partisan members of Congress go, Rep. Charlie Rangel is one of the most accessible to programs where he’d be ideologically outnumbered, and tonight he visited The O’Reilly Factor as he has many times before. But tonight he was up against Laura Ingraham, who he repeatedly accused of giving him time to answer and, exasperatedly, quipped, “Bill O’Reilly told me he had a secret weapon– I didn’t know it was just a pretty girl.”

Rep. Maxine Waters came off a contentious public event with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to jump into a feud with Rep. Allen West, who responded to the caucus last night by comparing himself to Harriet Tubman and accusing Rep. Waters and others of running a “plantation.” On today’s Hardball, Rep. Waters begrudgingly responded, adding that the Congressman had sent his out-of-work brother to her town hall today to ask for help with jobs.

On America Live this afternoon, Megyn Kelly had conservative radio host Ben Ferguson and liberal radio talk show host Rob Thompson on to discuss how the current state of the job market and the economy will impact Barack Obama as he campaigns for a second term.

When Kelly tried to interrupt Thompson mid-speech to ask Ferguson another question, the segment began to veer slightly out of control. And, yes, there was giggling.

The crown jewel of the Gov. Rick Perry presidential campaign so far appears to be the great number of jobs created in the state during his tenure. On his program tonight, Anderson Cooper splashed some cold water on the claim by showing both President Obama and Perry “created jobs,” but, unlike on a national level, Perry benefited from an extraordinary population growth that created great demand for jobs. “The idea that one creates, the other destroys them is a stretch, at best,” he argued.

Texas governor Rick Perry has experienced his fair share of ups and downs this week, surges in attention and popularity dotted with criticism — from big names within his own party — over his rhetoric. You’ll recall that, Monday evening in Iowa, a reporter asked Perry whether he thought President Barack Obama loved the U.S. Perry’s response? “You need to ask him. I’m saying, you’re a good reporter, go ask him.” During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Obama responded to the comment by saying he’ll cut Perry some slack, but that one should be careful about the things one says.

Chris Matthews is fed up. Sure, that’s sort of his shtick, but this time around, he’s taken a break from decimating Republican politicians and is reserving his ire for none other than Barack Obama. The Hardball host, after giving a brief rundown on Republicans’ support of laissez-faire economics (which consists, apparently, of telling the government to “get out of our face”), said he has no idea what the President’s policy happens to be or how it might differ from what Republicans are trying to do.

With Congress out of session and half a month of little to do before him, President Obama is going on a bus tour across America to meet with people and discuss the important economic troubles the nation has ahead. While he isn’t the first or last executive (or wannabe executive) to do so, Chris Matthews hesitated to support the move today, suggesting that a tour without a plan didn’t make much political sense and rounding off his doubts with what could be the worst political insult possibly in August 2011: “It seems like something Tim Pawlenty would’ve done.”