Now that President Barack Hussein Obama’s (Peace be upon him.) approval ratings have been consistently under 50% for a while, some of those in his strongest voting bloc are starting to gripe about the way in which he’s exercising his perceived “mandate”.

Since Obama ascended to the Throne, African Americans have faced a number of high points, like  an exceptionally high unemployment rate, a high foreclosure rate, and a high number of African-American political figures thrown under the wheels of the legendary Obama Bus:  former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, former Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod, South Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene, former green energy czar Van Jones, Democratic Illinois Sen. Roland Burris, Democratic New York Gov. David Patterson, would-be Democratic New York Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., and Democratic Reps. Charlie Rangel of New York, Maxine Waters of California and Kendrick Meek of Florida.

There’s gratitude for ya.

Professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University, Dr. Cornel West, is one of the African-American leaders who are upset about Obama’s neglect of African-American issues. West said that he has been extremely frustrated with the president’s perceived aloofness regarding civil rights issues.

He can take the black base for granted because he assumes we have nowhere else to go.  But we just won’t put up with it. He has got to respect us.

West is not alone in feeling neglected.  According to West, behind the scenes, a lot of African-American leaders are not happy with Obama’s failure to address issues important to the black community, a community which felt that their issues were finally going to be given special attention by helping to elect the nation’s first black president.  However, according to West, many of those dissatisfied leaders are hesitant to step forward.

There hasn’t been a lot of talk about it because I think most black spokespeople, at the moment, are scared of the Obama machine.   A lot of us are trying to put the pressure on him without aiding and abetting the right wing.

Radio-talk show host and expert on black politics, Dr. Wilmer Leon, said that while Obama has actively been distancing himself from the African-American community, few know the best way to push him in the right direction.

On the one hand many in the community are very frustrated with the president and want him to say more and do more and stop throwing people under the bus.  But many in the community don’t quite know how to approach him because of the historic nature of his presidency and they don’t want to do the brother in.

Shelby Steele, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has written extensively about the fine line the president had to walk in order to be elected.  His book, “A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win,” illuminates all the political wheeling and dealing that Obama had to make in order to be elected.  According to Steele, Obama is a “bargainer,” who appeals to white sensibilities by eschewing the presumption of racism.  This would be in contrast to a “challenger,” or an individual who presumes his white counterpart is racist.

I think that is why he is president of the United States, because he is a superb bargainer on this racial level. If he starts to pay any kind of special attention to black problems then he starts to look like what I call a ‘challenger,’ somebody who has a chip on his shoulder who has a hidden agenda.  He cannot politically afford to pay special attention to black Americans. So if he runs into any black Americans who seem to have any coloring of militancy, he runs for his life. He cannot be associated with those people — Reverend Wright almost did him in. So he throws them under the bus very quickly.

Bingo.