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Its been the summer of his discontent for President Obama, at least in terms of how voters apparently see him.

Gallup reported this past week that Americans are more than twice as likely to say they strongly disapprove of President Barack Obama's job performance (39 percent) as they are to say they strongly approve (17 percent), and its been trending in that direction.

The percentage of Americans who strongly disapprove of Obama has increased over time, while the percentage who strongly approve has dropped by almost half, writes Gallups Justin McCarthy in an analysis of the polling organizations latest findings. In the first year of Obama's presidency, the percentages of Americans who had strong views about the job he was doing were essentially tied [32-30 percent with a slight edge to approve], but the strongly negative responses now significantly outweigh the strongly positive ones.

When those who moderately approve or disapprove of the Presidents job performance are added in, Obama still comes up short 53 percent disapprove to 44 percent approve.

True, theres a strong partisan element to this with Republicans more intense in their disapproval 75 percent strongly disapprove of the way hes handling his job as president.

But Democrats enthusiasm for Obama has waned considerably since that first honeymoon summer of 2009, with strong approval dropping from 65 percent back then to 38 percent today. Among independents, intensity of views has been more consistent over time, but its still not great news for Obama today: 54-39 percent disapprove/approve.

Looking at specific issues or presidential responsibilities particularly at a time when dangerous situations around the world (Ukraine, Iraq/Syria) seem to be escalating gives similar and perhaps more urgent results.

Obamas approach to foreign policy continues to be viewed as not tough enough, the Pew Research Center reported this past week. Fifty-four percent say Obama is not tough enough in his approach on foreign policy and national security issues, while 36 percent say his approach is about right and just 3 percent say he is too tough.

Obama did himself no favors the other day when he remarked to reporters that we dont have a strategy yet for confronting the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq and Syria.

While the White House went into damage-control mode, emphasizing that it was a reference to the lack ofdecisionsabout increasing military action in Iraq and/or Syria and not a lack of a broader strategy there, the damage was already done, writes Aaron Blake in the Washington Posts political blog The Fix.

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Obama ponders action against Islamic State extremists. What do Americans think? (+video)