“The evidence didn’t support prosecution and the Justice Department engaged in this, the President engaged in this and turned it into a political issue that should have been handled exclusively with law and order.”

— Rep. Steve King (R-IA), in an interview on Fox News Sunday, arguing that George Zimmerman should never have been tried for the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Janet Napolitano will resign as the head of the Department of Homeland Security to become the next president of the University of California, “in an unusual choice that brings a national-level politician to a
position usually held by an academic,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

Her
appointment also means the 10-campus system will be headed by a woman
for the first time in its 145-year history.

Interesting speculation: If President Obama appoints Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, to replace Napolitano, it would open a U.S. Senate seat for Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden (D).

A new Quinnipiac poll finds 51% of Americans say Republicans are responsible for gridlock in Washington, D.C while 35% percent say President Obama “lacks the skills to convince leaders of Congress to work together.”

Asked another way, 53% say Obama is doing “too little” to compromise with congressional Republicans, but 68% of voters say congressional Republicans are doing “too little.”

Said pollster Peter Brown: “Voters think the Democrats and Obama aren’t playing nice, but they think the Republicans are worse.”

First Read: “No one ever said American politics was easy, particularly during a time of divided government, but President Obama has seemed to hit a brick wall six months into his second term. The Senate filibustered the crux of his gun-control efforts; the aftermath of the Arab Spring has been difficult to manage; and the prospects for passing immigration reform now look worse than they’ve been all year, especially after House Republicans emerged from their meeting yesterday.”

“Meanwhile, it’s been about four months since the Republican National Committee released its recommendations to move the party forward after its two-straight presidential defeats. Those recommendations included reaching out to Latinos and African Americans, passing immigration reform, and focusing less on divisive social issues. The progress so far? Congressional Republicans are now opposing comprehensive immigration reform, especially one that gives undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship; conservatives on the Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Civil Rights Act; and GOP lawmakers across the country are pursuing restrictions on abortion — after Mitt Romney lost female voters by 11 points in 2012.”

“Both Obama and Republicans thought they’d have a fresh start in 2013, but so far the year has turned out to be more of the same, if not even more dysfunctional. In other words, little to nothing has changed.”

A new Quinnipiac poll finds President Obama with a negative 44% to 48% approval rate.

Key finding: Obama a negative 40% to 52% percent approval for the way he is handling foreign policy, his worst grade ever on that score.

Said pollster Peter Brown: “President Obama is in a slump, under water for the last two surveys. His negative ratings come at the same time that voters are becoming more optimistic about the economy, saying 35% to 22% that it’s improving, with 43% saying it’s unchanged. Voter optimism about the economy usually helps presidential approval numbers.”

“With several controversies fading and a period of intense foreign travel over, President Obama is narrowing his focus this summer to two issues, immigration and the economy, that could help determine the success or failure of his second term,” the Washington Post reports.

“On immigration, Obama is devising a new, more public strategy that will include events in states with large Latino populations… — part of an aggressive effort to pressure House Republicans who remain skeptical of proposed changes….”The president also plans a series of summertime events focused on steps the government can take to drive economic growth.”

Politico pulls a great anecdote from This Town by Mark Leibovich:

“A 33-point memo detailing ways to praise top White House aide Valerie Jarrett was sent out to staffers shortly after an unflattering profile of the adviser was published in the New York Times last year… The memo, written by deputy press secretary Jamie Smith, was titled ‘The Magic of Valerie’ and circulated through the West Wing as the Times was working on the profile.”

“There are prison-like elements, but it’s a really nice prison. You can’t complain.”

— Michelle Obama, quoted by Newsmax, on being First Lady.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds a majority of Americans regard President Obama favorably, but his numbers have softened considerably among his fellow Democrats.

Obama’s favorability stands at 53%, compared to 44% of Americans who view him unfavorably.

While 85% of Democrats regard Obama favorably, the number of those who are strongly supportive of him has dropped since the start of the year. Just 58% of Democrats describe themselves as having a “strongly favorable” view of Obama, down from 72% who said the same in January.

A new Quinnipiac poll in Ohio finds President Obama’s job approval is a negative 40% to 57%, his lowest grade ever in the state.

The Senate easily confirmed Penny Pritzker as the new Commerce Secretary, by a vote of 97 to 1, the Washington Post reports.

“Pritzerk’s nomination was initially thought to face some hurdles in the Senate, owing to the Hyatt hotel heiress’s battles with labor unions and some personal financial issues. In the end, though, nobody stepped up to vocally oppose her nomination.”

“Not yet six months into his second term, Barack Obama’s presidency is in a dead zone,” Politico reports.

“A combination of familiar Washington intransigence and a more recent run of bad news and political setbacks have left him with less influence over his circumstances — and more buffeted by factors beyond his control — than at any time in his five years in office.”

“But in a damning appraisal, a wide variety of congressional Democrats and presidential scholars said in interviews that there is another decisive factor behind Obama’s current paralysis: his own failure to use the traditional tools of the presidency to exert his will.”

The Supreme Court “agreed to decide the scope of a president’s constitutional authority to make recess appointments, a power that Democratic and Republican administrations have used for decades to install nominees without Senate confirmation,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The justices agreed to consider an appeal by the Obama administration, which is seeking to overturn a lower-court ruling that invalidated President Obama’s use of recess appointments to fill vacancies at the National Labor Relations Board.”

First Read: “It’s most pronounced in the House. But it’s also evident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where President Obama and his team have been struggling over the past month. For the White House, it hasn’t just been the controversies or the president not yet finding his voice when it comes to the NSA surveillance. It also was present overseas this week, especially when he was unsuccessful in getting G-8 consensus on Syria. And even when it comes to immigration, the president is — by design — taking a backseat. By comparison, the Senate DOES appear to be working at the moment, with bipartisan support for the immigration bill. But how long does that last? Bottom line: Nobody is really running Washington right now, and the public is noticing.”

A Yahoo News analysis of the 444 briefings that White House press secretary Jay Carney has held since becoming spokesman has identified 13 distinct strains in the way he dodges a reporter’s question.

In contrast to a CNN poll released earlier this week, a new Pew Research poll finds President Obama’s job approval rating has nonetheless remained fairly steady despite a series of controversies. Currently, 49% approve of the way Obama is handling his new1job as president while 43% disapprove.

President Obama’s “near-complete absence from more than 25 percent of the states, from which he is politically estranged, is no surprise, in that it reflects routine cost-benefit calculations of the modern presidency. But in a country splintered by partisanship and race, it may also have consequences,” the New York Times reports.

“America’s 21st-century politics, as underscored by the immigration debate now embroiling Congress, increasingly pits the preferences of a dwindling, Republican-leaning white majority against those of expanding, Democratic-leaning Hispanic and black minorities. Even some sympathetic observers fault Mr. Obama for not doing all he could to pull disparate elements of society closer.”

Former Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers told Real Clear Politics that President Obama should be tried for war crimes.

Said Ayers: “Every president in this century should be put on trial. Every one of them goes into an office dripping with blood and then adds to it. And, yes, I think that these are war crimes. I think that they’re acts of terror.”