It?s one thing if hardened critics like Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly ask whether the Obama presidency is ?imploding,? as she did last month , citing a string of foreign policy debacles and domestic scandals.
Or if Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers says Obama ?seems to have taken something like an early retirement,? as he did in his Washington Post blog earlier this month, finding that the president?s recent speeches reveal ?a state of mind that suggests he has checked out.?
It is another, however, if the chief U.S. commentator for the Financial Times, Edward Luce, takes Obama to task, as he did this week, in an op-ed titled ?Farewell to trust: Obama?s Germany syndrome.?
Veteran journalist Patrick Smith, who has written for liberal publications like The Nation and the New Yorker, also takes Obama to task for the German spy scandal and the insufficient response by American officials.
?I can think of two names for this,? Smith wrote this week in Fiscal Times. ?One is ?outmoded arrogance.? The other is ?asleep at the wheel.? Whatever the moniker, some measure of incompetence lies behind it.?
When MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski interviewed Obama last month on the subject of Iraq, network commentator Donny Deutsch, an avowed Democrat, said, ?I?ve never seen a less-engaged look in his eyes.?
Another commentator on that program, Mark Halperin, said that Obama?s answers on the Syrian situation were nuanced and accurate, but people expect more from a president than great analysis of problems.
?It?s up to the president of the United States to take some bold action to try to address them,? said Halperin, co-author of ?Game Change,? the bestselling book on the 2008 presidential campaign, ?and not just sit and say here?s why this is hard, here?s why this is hard.?
The average of current polls at Real Clear Politics shows Obama?s approval rating sinking to 41.6, from above 44 two months ago. More significant, perhaps, is that the gap between those who disapprove and those who approve has widened to 12 points from just 7.
That is why one Washington insider publication, The Hill, ran a story this week under the headline ?Obama the pariah ? and an unambiguous lead:
?Democrats in tough reelection races have a blunt message for President Obama: Keep away.?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rig...out-2014-07-16