Here's both my qualifier and my bona fides for the opinion that follows: I earned my Republican stripes working for a GOP U.S. senator, for Ronald Reagan's first successful presidential campaign and for Newt Gingrich.

As the week unfolded, it appeared that the last days of the lame-duck session of Congress might well end in gridlock. Many issues had been left to the last days, but certainly the biggest issue was whether the so-called "Bush tax cuts" would be extended for not only the "middle class," but for those fabulously wealthy individuals who have the audacity to earn more than $250,000 a year -- the "wealthy."

Those who've followed this column over the years know that when President Obama was first elected, I tried valiantly to give him the benefit of the doubt. I believed for the best that his promise of "change" would be an exercise in moderation and sound judgment. But that didn't happen, and this past week's elections were a comprehensive rebuke of the first two years of his presidency.

A generation ago, the national Republican Party was under the command of the late Lee Atwater. With its personal-political attacks on opponents, the GOP back then knew how to play the roughest brand of political warfare anyone could remember.

Mainstream media were taken aback when television and radio talk-show host Glenn Beck recently hosted a rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The throng of people assembled to celebrate and hear more about religious and civic values than about partisan politics.

Let me first do what some in this business fail to do: reveal a potential conflict of interest and remind readers that I served as Newt Gingrich's political chairman before and while he was speaker of the House. I've known him 30 years. But those who follow this column, including Gingrich, have not always enjoyed my views on some of his words or actions.

Let me first always remind readers that polls are a snapshot in time. Two years from now, President Obama could be sitting on top of the world politically. But for now, he has lost all but 38 percent approval from the critical "independent" American voters. They're the ones that gave him the presidency. He appears headstrong in his determination to show the nation what a disastrous presidency looks like.