Mr. thrill-up-his-leg finds Obama looking a little frumpy lately...

Is the Obama White House sending some Carteresque signals these days? Some see that in the deep bow to the Emperor of Japan, an unforced error say critics. Then there was, there was what happened in China: Obama got nothing in the way of concessions over there in spite of playing the polite visitor. And his effort to speak directly to the Chinese was jammed by the government. Third, that decision to try the terrorists up in that federal court in New York City. Again, nothing that had to be done, and critics say it shows that Obama, his team doesn't understand this is a war we're in.

What will surprise you, dear reader, is not Obama's Carteresque political instincts, but that it took until now until the Washington abrutis noticed.

Its a fascinating phenomenon, and that deserved to be remarked because we are learning something about how presidents who are immensely popular with the media (any Democrat), manage the squander that advantage and invite post-first-term retirement.

How big is this? Well, consider that the media--whose job its been lately to make sure that we don't get the news about the Global Warming Ponzi scheme or ACORN's machinations, couldn't ultimately explain away, ignore or find the sliver lining in two successive diplomatic disasters and an unforced error on the War of Terror. The gaff-prone Obama administration just overwhelmed the media's capacity for damage control.

You know when Chris Matthews can't look the other way on Obama, it's really, really bad. My take on this is that Eric Holder's plan to try 9/11 terrorists in New York City was the last watt of heat needed to make the pot boil over. Millions of people all over the country can be mad as hell about health care and the economy, and it merits a shoulder shrug--but when media-types encounter white hot anger at the Tribeca Grill and down at the Rockefeller Plaza Starbucks, something in the zeitgeist has turned and media elite start to contemplate the effect on their careers.

Its a tough spot for the administration because having waited so long to do anything about the long-promised closing of Guantanamo, and going to great lengths to assure the public that they have completely thought this through, a walk-back is going to look even more politically ham-handed than announcing the trials at the 'scene-of-the-crime'.

It hiliarious that this recent series of gaffs is being characterized as well, uncharacteristic. Obama etal were just as clumsy on the campaign trail. The media and a good portion of the public was just to willing to overlook those tell-tales because Obama was 'black President' material. The reality is that Obama and his merry band of arrogant socialists, are simply tone-deaf to middle-American culture values and sensibilities. Bill Clinton has been on the receiving end of a lot of mockery about being able to "feel our pain", but it was precisely his intimate familiarity with Bubba-hood as well as the environs of Harvard and Yale that provided him with laser-sharp political instincts--he understood the country, and so knew when to pivot and when not to go there. Obama is a creature from the Black Lagoon of Chicago politics--too specialized to adapt to the many varied political environments of this country.

I fully expect that his capacity to piss off Americans will continue to exceed the media's capacity to ignore, obfuscate and mitigate the damage.