No wonder Congress is so unpopular. Last year's House and Senate teamed up to be the most ineffective Congress in decades. Sadly, the new Congress looks like it is going to underperform its predecessor.

While 2011 was a volatile year for the president, he didn't lose all that much ground. He ended the year on an upswing, and while he still isn't in great shape for the election, he is heading upwards and things are looking a lot better than they did a few months ago.

The determined efforts of the enemies of Social Security to sacrifice the program on the altar of deficit reduction have been frustrated, at least for the moment.

The reason for the low score includes the downgrade of American credit in August, a sluggish economy, the intractable U.S. debt problem and -- most of all -- the incessant political bickering which ensured that none of these problems were adequately addressed.