Afghanistan

 For all his flourish, President Barack Obama sure falls back on a few familiar phrases.

Make no mistake. Change isn't easy. It won't happen overnight. There will be setbacks and false starts.

Those who routinely listen to the president have come to expect some of those expressions to pop up in almost every speech. (That includes you, cynics and naysayers, the ones Obama mentions all the time without identifying who is saying nay.)

 According to an Associated Press-GfK poll the ratings the US President Barack Obama are again rising since their decline after the inauguration. New figures show that Americans are getting more optimistic again while concerns over the economy, health care and war remain with less support being expressed for the war in Afghanistan.

The report revealed that 56% of respondents polled last week approve of Obama's job performance as compared with 50% reported in September. This improvement is the first after Obama took office earlier this year.