We’re a month short of a year since Barack Obama took office with sky-high approval ratings and the people prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on a range of issues from the economy, to health care reform, to the environment.

I think in order to be fair, we should acknowledge that unlike George Bush, Barack Obama has tackled head on some very difficult, and divisive problems at the outset of his presidency. In contrast, looking at Bush’s situation prosaically, he got some popular legislation passed prior to 9/11 (tax cuts and No Child Left Behind) after which point his popularity rose to spectacular levels as a result of the attacks on America.

It’s easy for a president’s approval ratings to remain high if he doesn’t do anything controversial or is in office during a national security crisis. But president Obama did not have that luxury. He made a deliberate, calculated decision to tackle an economic crisis with a massive expenditure of funds, address global warming by getting the House to pass a carbon trading scheme, and tried to ram a gargantuan health care reform bill through the Congress.

We can argue the merits or demerits of what the president was attempting to do, but what is not at issue is that by addressing these controversial matters, Obama’s approval ratings were bound to drop.

But drop this far?

In December’s survey, for the first time, less than half of Americans approved of the job President Barack Obama was doing, marking a steeper first-year fall for this president than his recent predecessors.

Also for the first time this year, the electorate was split when asked which party it wanted to see in charge after the 2010 elections. For months, a clear plurality favored Democratic control.

The survey suggests that public discontent with Mr. Obama and his party is being driven by an unusually grim view of the country’s status and future prospects.

A majority of Americans believe the U.S. is in decline. And a plurality now say the U.S. will be surpassed by China in 20 years as the top power.

The president’s approval stands at 47% in this WSJ/NBC poll. That’s probably higher than it should be from the standpoint that the president is failing on a number of levels:

* The “stimulus bill,” the writing of which was outsourced to Congress, has not had the anticipated results and a majority of Americans now see it as something of a boondoggle.

* Cap and Trade/Global Warming was in trouble before Climategate with the public becoming increasingly skeptical of both the problem and the solution. Again, the president depended on his congressional lieutenants to carry the load to the point now where any action on the bill is on life support in the senate.

* Health care reform is currently in meltdown. Everybody agrees there is a problem. No one – except the president himself – likes what the process has done to the legislation. It is rare that something could get so screwed up that liberals, moderates, and conservatives can mostly agree – for different reasons – that the bill is a turkey.

It would be false to say the president hasn’t done anything right. Parts of the stim bill, like the monies for alternative energy research and development, were good and necessary expenditures of the public purse, and even parts of the health care bill address critical problems in a reasonable manner. And the president’s foreign policy record, while spotted with jaw dropping naivete in some respects, nevertheless has its good points as well.

But overall, the president simply isn’t delivering. Disaster seems to be overtaking his administration and for whatever reason, he seems powerless to halt the slide.

It could be that the issues are just too divisive, too complex to address. This would be a reflection on the current state of our politics where nuance and complexity are abandoned for sound bites and excessive partisanship. If this be the case, we are in deeper trouble than even that poll might suggest.

But I believe the president’s troubles go beyond the issues or the nasty backbiting that passes for political discourse today. I think a case can be made that the president simply isn’t demonstrating leadership. He is not convincing anyone. He is not inspiring a lot of people. His dealings with Congress are strangely docile and subdued, as if he is holding back, allowing them to take the lead.

He doesn’t appear able to use the full power of his office to get his way. And when he tries hardball – threatening Senator Nelson with the loss of Offut AFB, a key jobs generator in Nebraska for example – he overplays his hand. While he seems adequately engaged on the issues, his prescription for everything appears to be more speeches and town halls or transparent gimmicks like the “Jobs Summit.” Last weekend, he journeyed to the Hill and gave a pro-forma speech to senators – a gimmcky, useless exercise. Later in the week, he dramatically called senators to the White House only to let Rhambo read them the riot act, while the president sat by, all but disengaged from the fray.

Is this a fatal flaw in the president’s personality? We knew so little about the man before he became president that we simply couldn’t judge how his obvious leadership qualities would translate into concrete skills. Perhaps he abhors confrontation. Maybe he is getting bad advice. Whatever the cause, he better figure out a way to right the ship quickly.

With health care, the process has taken on a life of its own. Getting something, anything passed has now become the priority, and with that comes confusion and compromises. Shouldn’t the president be stepping in and drawing a line in the sand “this far and no farther?” This is what the Democratic base wants Obama to do and it is sound advice.

The process is out of control and the senate Democratic caucus is coming unglued because of it. Whether any kind of reform can get through either chamber is now up in the air with liberals taking the lead in opposing the senate bill. And with the president’s base now on the warpath, who is going to support what is clearly a flawed piece of legislation? It appears an impossible task for the president to be able to cobble together a coalition of Democrats that could make reform a reality at this point.

As the president jets off to Copenhagen – another disappointment, although the lack of any significant agreement is not his fault – he leaves behind an administration that is on the precipice of failure. Sure he has three more years to go, and he could no doubt recover enough to beat any Republican challenger in 2012.

But the high hopes and high expectations that he rode into office are fading fast, and by the time he delivers his state of the union speech, he may have to think hard about re-calibrating his priorities and perhaps even re-inventing his presidency.