"Biden’s overall approval rating fell from 50 percent to 44 percent from June, also dragged down by 2-to-1 disapproval for..."

"... his handling of Afghanistan following a chaotic withdrawal. Biden’s ratings for handling the economy also have declined, from 52 percent positive in April to 45 percent in the latest survey."

WaPo reports. 

But elsewhere in WaPo, we have "Opinion: The Supreme Court rides to Biden’s rescue" by Kathleen Parker. 

That's got to be the most predictable column of the week. Yes, Biden's doing horribly, and yes, it's awful the way the Supreme Court couldn't stop that Texas abortion law, but isn't it good for Biden and the Democrats that the threat to abortion rights is suddenly powerfully grabbing the everybody's attention? 

That's my paraphrase. Here's a bit of Parker's pep talk:

President Biden’s personal hell month featured...  Hurricane Ida... Afghanistan... covid-19’s delta variant... a dragging economy... and uncontrollable fires out west.... 

The president has been bouncing all over the four Horses of the Apocalypse....

It's not "four Horses of the Apocalypse." It's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And I can't picture bouncing all over them. Is he supposed to be the rider of all 4 horses, like he is all 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I don't think the Biblical reference is properly understood here.

Back to the column:

The president has been bouncing all over the four Horses of the Apocalypse, a reluctant gladiator trying to rein in the ruin of his presidency when...

So a gladiator is bouncing on the horses, trying to rein them in? Here's a nice painting of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887):

Maybe there's a gladiator there in the foreground, but he's not in a position to rein in those horses, and he's certainly not in a position to bounce on those horses. Does WaPo's Parker picture the Apocalypse as something like a rodeo? A Roman rodeo....

The president has been bouncing all over the four Horses of the Apocalypse, a reluctant gladiator trying to rein in the ruin of his presidency when, suddenly, a double rainbow appears over the U.S. Supreme Court.... Thanks to cultural conservatives, pro-lifers and even former president Donald Trump, Republicans finally may have overstepped. The court certainly ended Biden’s run of bad luck.... Whatever happens, the next several weeks will most certainly be a wall-to-wall abortion freakout, giving Biden a minute or two to recover from an August that he’d probably like to forget. He is surely eager to dismount from his wild ride....

Parker does picture the Apocalypse like a rodeo where you have to ride 4 horses at once. But is she right about the rainbow? Is there a rainbow in Revelation's vision of the Apocalypse? Yes:

The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury. The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts. 

Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars. He was holding a little scroll, which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion. When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke. And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.”

If you look closely at the Vasnetsov painting, you'll find the rainbow.

I support abortion rights, but there's something terribly wrong about exulting over the partisan advantages to be wrung from abortion as a political issue. Yay, for us! Rainbows! It's a grim matter of death and destruction. It's in horrible taste — at the very least — to say after all the suffering in Afghanistan and from covid, the hurricane, and the fires, it's so great to get back to good old abortion, where we can stir up the old-time hysteria and rile up the voters the way we've been doing it for 50 years.