A TIME poll taken on October 9 and 10, with a base of 1,001 people, has turned up some interesting results about how Americans view the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, and dysfunction in Washington. 81% of respondents think the country is on the wrong track, but they’re reluctant to place the blame fully on President Obama for the problems; 50% of the respondents disapprove of the way he’s handling the job, but 59% believe that he cares about them, and half of the respondents say he has the toughness necessary to see this through. On an exceedingly grim note, only 4% of the 1,001 polled feel positive about the state of the country today.

On Friday, CNN’s American Morning aired an Ali Velshi interview with William Shatner, in which Shatner, famous for his role as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek, brushed aside the idea that President Obama needed to be more like Kirk and less like Mr. Spock.

Fred Armisen’s Barack Obama was back tonight to comment on the barely-averted budget shutdown this weekend. It was a typical legislative triumph, Obama concluded, as everyone “walked away unhappy.” Also upset? Congressional interns who would rather spit game at the bar, the cleaning staff on Capitol Hill, and kids who were hoping the shutdown meant they didn’t have to go with their parents to Yellowstone National Park. Members of Congress weren’t too happy either, but for personal reasons: Mitt Romney was reminded of his inability to connect to other human beings, and Dennis Kucinich was still sore over being picked last for kickball.

Need more evidence that President Obama‘s State of the Union speech was an effort to effectively move to the center? Then please watch the following interview from Good Morning America in which Senator John McCain openly praises many of the president’s policies outlined last night, during an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Obama’s pledge towards reducing the corporate tax rate, free trade and medical malpractice reform seemed to please the Republican Senator from Arizona.

Despite losing his bid to become the Governor of New York, Jimmy McMillan—the most prominent member of the The Rent Is Too Damn High party—hasn’t lost an ounce of steam. The man roared his way through an interview on Revolution Radio yesterday, where he made a surprise announcement: He’s planning to run against President Obama in 2012. And he’s going to do it as a Republican. And it’s going to be awesome.

Frosty the Snowman turned up on Saturday Night Live last night to reflect on the passing year and inspire hope for the new one. Democrats, he noted, are hoping the hardest, given that 2010 was so full of political losses. So he peered into the souls of some of Washington’s most prominent Dems to find out what headlines they’d like to see in 2011—like “WikiLeaks: John McCain a Muslim,” dreamt up by President Obama.

Less than a week after a contentious appearance on America Live with Megyn Kelly, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) gave Fox News another shot last night with an appearance on Hannity to discuss the potential Bush tax cut extension and tax philosophy in general. And while the overall conversation went better than this, the two men certainly had their share of differences (of course).

There’s been much consternation among Democrats about the way President Obama‘s proposed tax package cowtows to Republican demands. But Fred Armisen‘s Obama has a perfectly good explanation as to what happened. “This White House had no choice,” he said. Republican leaders, you see, had held Team Obama hostage—literally.

In her recent hour-long interview with Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey revealed that she’s still one of President Obama‘s number one fans. “I think it’s unfortunate when you have a nation of people who don’t want to support the president of the United States,” she said, adding that she doesn’t think Americans realize how much worse the recession could have been if not for Obama’s actions. Oprah was a lot less open, however, when it came to expressing her opinion of another polarizing political figure: Sarah Palin.

Less than a month after being convicted on 11 counts of ethical violations by a House panel, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) sat down for a chat with Bill O’Reilly on the Factor tonight. If you thought O’Reilly would push Rangel more than Rangel believed was fair, and ultimately neither would really get anywhere…well, yeah, that’s about how it went.

One of the most popular political videos of the last few days involves union leader Tom Buffenbarger stumping for Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential race, while saying Barack Obama wasn’t enough of a fighter to take on Republicans. Of course, in the wake of Obama’s compromise with Republicans on extending tax cuts, such criticism found new life, and tonight Keith Olbermann had Buffenbarger on his program to discuss how he thinks a Hillary Clinton presidency would have differed from Obama’s run so far.

Like a lot of liberals, Rachel Maddow is pretty disappointed with President Obama‘s decision to capitulate to Republican tax cut demands, as well as the forceful defense of his actions he made in a press conference today. But unlike most liberals, Rachel Maddow has a TV show—which tonight gave her the perfect opportunity to go through each point Obama made during his press conference and refute them, one by one.

During a defensive press conference today, President Obama ruffled a few feathers by making a controversial comparison between Republicans and hostage takers. Fox News Washington Correspondent James Rosen especially took umbrage at this remark—but not because he thought it was uncalled for. Instead, as Rosen told Bill O’Reilly tonight, he thinks Obama’s comment could have “national security implications.”

Rep. Steve King stopped by Anderson Cooper’s show tonight to discuss his case against the Pigford black farmer settlement—and to discuss semantics, in light of his comment about President Obama being “very, very urban.” When Cooper asked King what he meant by his remark, the representative answered that he was using the word “urban” in the literal sense, and that he had no idea it could ever be construed as a pejorative.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa just can’t stop making racially charged statements. In June, he declared that President Obama “has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race, on the side that favors the black person.” In July, he questioned a class action lawsuit brought by black farmers against the USDA, implying that what the farmers really wanted were reparations. Today, he turned his focus back to Obama, calling the President “very, very urban”—and we all know what he means by “urban.”

Barbara Walters talked to both President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama tonight as part of a Thanksgiving 20/20 special, and unsurprisingly, one topic that arose was the toll the presidency takes on a family. Citing Michelle’s desire for her husband to quit politics back in 2000 when he lost the Democratic primary for Congress in Illinois, Walters asked the First Lady if she ever thinks that “one term is enough.”

First it was flying books, and now it’s flying elbows. The White House has just announced that President Obama was injured today while playing basketball. After being hit in the mouth, the President needed 12 stitches in his lip.

Two months ago, a woman from Maryland became a media darling when she stood up at a town hall event and told President Obama, in no uncertain terms, that while she was once an unquestioning supporter, she had become “exhausted of defending you.” In a twisted turn of events, this morning CNBC reported that that woman—Velma Hart—had been let go from her job.

It seems that an excess of time zone-shifting may have addled President Obama’s brain after his latest trip to Lisbon. On Twitter, reporters Mark Knoller of CBS and Ed Henry of CNN both wrote that as Air Force One was flying back to Washington on Friday, Obama stopped by the press cabin and joked about having the plane stop in South America so that he could pay a visit to Hugo Chavez.

This afternoon, President Obama spoke before the press about GM’s new public stock offering. His brief, optimistic speech noted that the American auto industry has begun to bounce back after nearly going bankrupt—”For the first time in six years, Ford, GM, and Chrysler are all operating at a profit. In fact, last week, GM announced its best quarter in over 11 years,” he said.

To wrap up a day filled with news about Palins of all stripes, here’s a brief clip from Sarah Palin‘s upcoming interview on Nightline. In it, she confesses to Barbara Walters that she’s seriously considering a presidential run—then answers “I believe so” when Walters asks if she believes she could beat Barack Obama.

Last week, Newsweek‘s Daniel Stone published a piece with a provocative thesis: that the American presidency “has grown, and grown and grown, into the most powerful, most impossible job in the world.” In other words, says Stone, the presidency is too big a job for just one man or woman to handle alone.

Columnist Charles Krauthammer, however, isn’t buying it.

What with all the brouhaha over George W. Bush‘s revealing interview with Matt Lauer, you may have forgotten that the former president’s memoir, Decision Points, has been released today. In honor of that occasion, the Daily Beast took a look at which politicians-turned-authors have moved the most volumes. At the top of their list? Barack Obama, whose two books combined have sold a staggering 4,650,000 copies.

The main uproar over President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to India is how much it may or may not cost, but Glenn Beck (while also wondering some about the cost) has a different question: will the president be safe?

When President Obama appeared on The Daily Show Wednesday night, he made a claim that may have caused some viewers to take pause. “Most of the jobs that we lost were lost before the economic policies we put in place had any effect,” Obama told Jon Stewart. But Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking operation, has taken a closer look at the President’s statement—and found that it holds up.