Obama Regime Suspends First Amendment

"and that makes it very easy to hide failure and to hide incompetence."

Chuck Colson Sounds the Alarm about 'New Speak'

Chuck Colson is sounding the alarm: The government—at the highest levels—may be attempting to redefine the very meaning of religious freedom. If what Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said in a recent speech reflects a new direction in government policy, it seems the aim is clear: To kick faith out of the public square, to send Christians into the closet.

Limbaugh: 'What Would Saul Alinsky Do?'

By David Limbaugh

Remember the popular motto "What would Jesus do?" which was invoked by many Christians as a moral guidepost for daily living? President Barack Obama more likely adheres to "What would Saul Alinsky do?" as most recently evidenced by his apparent defiance of a federal court order on his moratorium on offshore drilling.

Politico reports that the drilling companies who secured the court order blocking the moratorium say the administration indeed is going to defy the court order. I'm quite sure that Alinsky would applaud this move: If at first you don't succeed through proper legal channels, proceed anyway, because nothing is more important than the radical ends you seek, including the means that must be trampled in the process.

Of course, shrewd Alinskyites like Obama will always have a plausible excuse for their deceitful tactics. In this case, they are alleging newly discovered facts. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he intends to reimpose the drilling moratorium based on information that wasn't "fully developed" in May, when the six-month moratorium was imposed. Quite convenient.

The administration is also sending mixed signals, probably to introduce sufficient confusion to cover its disobedience. The government's brief filed with the court insisted, "Of course, until a further order of this Court or the Court of Appeals granting relief from this Court's Preliminary Injunction Order, Defendants will comply with the Court's Order." But attorneys for the drilling companies warn that "Secretary Salazar's comments have the obvious effect of chilling the resumption of (outer continental shelf) activities, which is precisely the wrong this Court sought to redress through its Preliminary Injunction Order."

The companies' point, notes Politico, is that Salazar's public announcement that the administration will reinstitute the moratorium will have the same practical effect as actually doing it because companies are not about to prepare rigs for drilling when they might be shut down in a few days. The administration predictably pooh-poohs the companies' concerns and says these new "facts" present an entirely different scenario. How convenient. Whenever you can't advance the football, just move the goal posts your way.

Can't you just hear an irate Alinsky-schooled Obama behind closed doors learning of the court order audaciously purporting to limit his plenary executive authority? "Just find the damn loophole -- or say you did -- and I don't want to see you again in this office until it's done."

Defying court orders is just one of many ways Obama abuses his authority. When Congress failed with its initial efforts to impose cap-and-tax legislation designed to suppress traditional energy production and consumption in the United States for the ostensible purpose of reducing global temperature an imperceptible amount over the next century, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency just issued ultra vires regulations to accomplish similar results. It didn't matter that every literate and intellectually honest person had to concede that the EPA had no statutory (or any other) authority to issue such sweeping regulations. What mattered were the administration's radical environmental goals.

When Obama wanted to secure for his favored unions a stake in his new General Motors far exceeding their actual ownership interest and rob secured creditors of their preferred-creditor status and the value of their investment, he used the power of his office to strong-arm a restructuring of the company to accomplish his aims. When Democratic Party donor and super-lawyer Tom Lauria opposed this plan on behalf of his client, the White House, according to Lauria, threatened to destroy his client's reputation. One unnamed source described the White House as the most shocking "end justifies the means" group he had ever encountered. Another attributed Obama's negotiating tactics to a "madman theory of the presidency," saying Obama wants to be feared as someone who is willing to do anything to get his way. In return for standing up for their legal rights as secured creditors and not bending to Obama's horrendously unfair demand, er, offer, Obama maligned the recalcitrant creditors as "a small group of speculators."

When inspector general Gerald Walpin blew the whistle on the corruption of an Obama friend and supporter, Obama fired Walpin and sought to discredit him as a senile misfit -- a charge wholly unsupported by the facts.

And I won't begin to recite the many ways (e.g., reconciliation) Obama sought to circumvent the legislative process en route to Obamacare.

Alinsky is surely beaming from the other side.

David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party.

McChrystal Out; Petraeus Picked for Afghanistan

President Barack Obama sacked his loose-lipped Afghanistan commander Wednesday, a seismic shift for the military order in wartime, and chose the familiar, admired — and tightly disciplined — Gen. David Petraeus to replace him. Petraeus, architect of the Iraq war turnaround, was once again to take hands-on leadership of a troubled war effort.

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White House Summons US General to Explain Himself

A General and Commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan who voted for Obama and shares inside gossip on the pages of Rolling Stone magazine -- it seems to us he and The One deserve each other.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been summoned to Washington to explain derogatory comments about President Barack Obama and his colleagues, administration officials said Tuesday.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who publicly apologized Tuesday for using "poor judgment" in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine, has been ordered to attend the monthly White House meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person Wednesday rather than over a secure video teleconference, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. He'll be expected to explain his comments to Obama and top Pentagon officials, these officials said.

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Kyl: Obama Uses Border Insecurity to Push Immigration Plan

From Newsmax

The Obama administration is using the increasing insecurity of the Mexican border to push through its own agenda on immigration, according to Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl.

In a video clip posted on YouTube showing the senator speaking to a local Tea Party crowd on Friday, Kyl aid the president told him during a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office that he was concerned he wouldn't win GOP support on immigration legislation if he took care of border security first.

"The problem is, he said, if we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform," Kyl said, as the crowd in the room gasped loudly. "In other words, they're holding it hostage."

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Has Obama Given Swath of Arizona Back to Mexico?

Three Arizona counties now off-limits to Americans.

Obama Fills Key Religious-Freedom Post

From Catholic World News

Nearly 17 months after taking office, President Barack Obama announced his appointee for the position of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom on June 15. Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook, who has served as the senior pastor of Bronx Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in New York, advised the Clinton administration on race relations. Some religious freedom advocates expressed disappointment that President Obama did not appoint an ambassador with foreign policy experience.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts (White House)
• Obama nominates Baptist pastor to be religious-freedom ambassador (Associated Baptist Press)

More Americans Say They Want BP ‘in Charge of’ Cleaning Up Oil Spill Rather Than Obama’s Federal Government

President Barack Obama, with Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, looks at oil containment booms being cleaned at a staging facility in Theodore, Ala., on Monday, June 14, 2010.
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

From CNSNews

More Americans say they want BP to remain “in charge of” cleaning up the Gulf oil spill rather than have the federal government in charge.

A USAToday/Gallup Poll asked 1,014 adults this question between June 11-13: “As you may know, BP is currently in charge of the efforts to control the oil spill and its effects on the ocean and coastal areas. Do you think the federal government should take over these efforts, or should BP continue to be in charge?”

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Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday

With theatrical productions in the Oval Office, trips to the Gulf interrupting golf games, and the "ass kicking" of Big Oil all failing to restore adoration for The One, can a new manufactured crisis be far off? Only Jimmy Carter comes out of this nightmare a winner; he's no longer America's worst ever President.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20 (see trends).

Forty-eight percent (48%) of Democrats Strongly Approve while 75% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 12% Strongly Approve and 52% Strongly Disapprove.

These results are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, today’s results are based almost entirely on interviews conducted before the president’s speech to the nation. The impact of the president’s speech will be seen over the next several days.

Heading into the speech, 30% of voters gave President Obama good or excellent marks for handling the oil spill. Forty-five percent (45%) said he was doing a poor job. Most voters (57%) still favor offshore oil drilling.

On another topic, most Americans (53%) continue to believe the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler was a bad idea.

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. That’s the lowest level of approval yet recorded for this president. Fifty-seven percent (57%) now disapprove. Those are the lowest ratings yet recorded for this president. The president’s approval rating has held steady in the 46% - 47% range for six months and it remains to be seen whether this new low is merely statistical noise or the start of a lasting change.

The Rasmussen Reports Media Meter shows that media coverage of President Obama has been 41% positive over the past week. Since the passage of the health care law, coverage has ranged from a high of 60% positive to a low of 39% positive.

New state polling shows that Republicans are ahead in both the Colorado and South Dakota races for Governor.

Pimp-in-Chief Loosens Funding Ban for Advocates of Prostitution and Sex Trafficking

From Catholic World News

The Obama administration has loosened a ban on international aid to organizations that support prostitution or sex trafficking, the National Catholic Register reports. Under the new policy, an organization receiving United States funds may have an “affiliated entity” that advocates for prositution and sex trafficking.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Obama Administration Eases Ban on Funds for Sex Trafficking Groups (National Catholic Register)
• Statement by Representative Chris Smith

Friends in High Places

The Obama Justice Department went to bat for the New Black Panther party—and then covered it up.

From The Weekly Standard
By Jennifer Rubin

The case is straightforward. On Election Day 2008, two members of the New Black Panther party (NBPP) dressed in military garb were captured on videotape at a Philadelphia polling place spouting racial epithets and menacing voters. One, Minister King Samir Shabazz, wielded a nightstick. It was a textbook case of voter intimidation and clearly covered under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

A Department of Justice trial team was assigned to investigate. They gathered affidavits from witnesses—one of the poll watchers was called a “white devil” and a “cracker.” A Panther told him he would be “ruled by the black man.” The trial team, all career Justice attorneys and headed by voting section chief Chris Coates, filed a case against the two Panthers caught on tape. Malik Zulu Shabazz, head of the national NBPP, and the party itself were also named based on evidence the party had planned the deployment of 300 members on Election Day and on statements after the incident in which the NBPP endorsed the intimidation at the Philadelphia polling station.

The trial team quickly obtained a default judgment—meaning it had won the case because the New Black Panther party failed to defend itself. Yet in May 2009, Obama Justice Department lawyers, appointed temporarily to fill top positions in the civil rights division, ordered the case against the NBPP dismissed. An administration that has pledged itself to stepping-up civil rights enforcement dropped the case and, for over a year, has prevented the trial team lawyers from telling their story.

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Religious Freedom Not an Obama Priority, Former US Official Charges

From Catholic World News

A former US State Department official, Thomas Farr, notes that the Obama administration has shown no special interest in religious-freedom questions, waiting 16 months to nominate an ambassador to handle those issues. Farr writes:

The Obama administration has achieved the unimaginable. It turns out that the list of the most important American values includes things like ensuring transparency, refraining from torture, protecting privacy, and "promoting the right to access information."

But not religious freedom.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• National security without religious liberty? (Washington Post)

New Oil Plume Evidence Uncovered

As if the pictures of birds, fish and animals killed by floating oil in the Gulf of Mexico are not disturbing enough, scientists now say they have found evidence of another danger lurking underwater.

The University of South Florida recently discovered a second oil plume in the northeastern Gulf. The first plume was found by Mississippi universities in early May.

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Black Bishop Explains the Source of Obama's Anti-Israel Policies

By Bishop E. W. Jackson

Like Obama, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School. I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama's policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization.

We heard it in Jesse Jackson's "HYMIE town" remark years ago during his Presidential campaign. We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright's remark about "them Jews²" not allowing Obama to speak with him. I hear it from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as a "Jew" problem.

Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania, I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were "greedy cheaters" who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood. I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or know that I was hearing anti-Semitism. These people seemed nice enough to me, but others said they were "evil."

Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be eradicated from the black community.

In Chicago, the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Most African Americans are not followers of "The Nation", but many have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, "he speaks the truth" and "stands up for the black man". What they mean of course is that he viciously attacks the perceived "enemies" of the black community -- white people and Jews. Even some self-described Christians buy into his demagoguery.

The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in Farrakhan's Chicago, shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people. Is there any evidence that he does? First, the President was taught for twenty years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the black community it is called "sitting under." You don't merely attend a church, you "sit under" a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him. Obama "sat under" Wright for a very long time. He was comfortable enough with Farrakhan, Wright's friend, to attend and help organize his "Million Man March." I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what "good" he claims to be doing. Yet a future resident was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his enthusiastic support.

The classic left wing view is that Israel is the oppressive occupier, and the Palestinians are Israel's victims. Obama is clearly sympathetic to this view. In speaking to the Muslim World, he did not address the widespread Islamic hatred of Jews. Instead he attacked Israel over the growth of West Bank settlements. Surely he knows that settlements are not the crux of the problem. The absolute refusal of the Palestinians to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is the insurmountable obstacle. That's where the pressure needs to be placed, but this President sees it differently. He also made the preposterous comparison of the Holocaust to Palestinian "dislocation." Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities. He sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective. His construct of "The Muslim World" is unique in modern diplomacy. It is said that only The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical elements of the religion use that concept. It is a call to unify Muslims around the world. It is rather odd to hear an American President use it. In doing so he reveals more about his thinking than he intends. The dramatic policy reversal of joining the unrelentingly anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and pro-Islamic UN Human Rights Council is in keeping with the President's truest albeit undeclared red sensibilities.

Those who are paying attention and thinking about these issues do not find it unreasonable to consider that President Obama is influenced by a strain of anti-Semitism picked up from the black community, his leftist friends and colleagues, his Muslim associations and his long period of mentor-ship under Jeremiah Wright. If this conclusion is accurate, Israel has some dark days ahead. For the first time in her history, she may find the President of the United States siding with her enemies. Those who believe, as I do, that Israel must be protected had better be ready for the fight. We are.

NEVER AGAIN!

Did White House Help Organize Gaza Flotilla?

A top adviser to President Obama is the contact person within the White House for communications with the Free Gaza Movement over plans to challenge Israel's blockade of the terrorist Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, according to a reputable source close to the Netanyahu government.

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President Obama's Marxist "Humanitarians" Help Provoke Attack On Israeli Forces

From The Traditional Values Coalition

CNN, MSNBC and the rest of the media have spent a lot of wattage on the "peace flotilla" which claimed to be bringing aid to people in Gaza over the objections of Israel. Israel had stopped, at least, two ships earlier this year carrying guns and missiles to Gaza and their insistence that all ships should be inspected and searched was very reasonable.

The multi-talented Caroline Glick produced a music video "We Con the World!" on all of the lies and distortions involved in the "humanitarian" flotilla to Gaza coupled with the Israel Defense Force (IDF) footage of the terrorist peaceniks gathering weapons to use against the Israeli boarding party.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the people of Israel need to be supported by our voices and by our prayers for the brave stand they have taken in defense of free and civilized people everywhere. Israel is surrounded by terrorists yet the rest of the world, including our own "transparent" President Obama, just watches.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is the leader of the free world while Barack Obama is trying to decide between golf or Gulf -- another round of golf or going down to the Gulf to get photographed with more oil-covered sea gulls. Obama is morphing into bumbling Jimmy Carter every hour of every day while Netanyahu is leading and taking on the stature of Reagan and Churchill.

God bless and protect Israel and God help America during this bleak and uncertain hour.

Few reports have focused on the two organizations involved in the flotilla. They are the IHH (Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief [Insani Yardim Vakfi]), billed as a "charity" group from Turkey and Free Gaza, an organization of leftist radicals who wish to foment violence against Israel.

The IHH is a front group with a history of supplying weapons to Islamic terrorist groups in the region. Even the French recognize this group as a front for terrorists.

Free Gaza was founded in 2008 to agitate for Islamists in the Gaza Strip. Involved in the founding of this were former Weather Underground domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dorhn, and Jodie Evans, a founder of Code Pink , an anti-military and anti-American organization. Code Pink routinely pickets military recruitment centers, barges into congressional hearings, and does whatever it can to subvert our efforts against Islamic terrorism around the world.

President Obama began his political career in the living room of Ayers and Dohrn . Ayers had been involved in the bombing of the Pentagon and a New York City police department in the 1970s during the Vietnam War. Both had gone underground for years to avoid capture for their terrorist activities.

TAKE ACTION: Contact your U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators and ask that they strongly support the efforts by Israel to protect themselves from Islamic terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip. Every nation has the inherent right to protect itself from invasion or attack by enemies.

Obama Makes Taxpayers Foot the Bill for Marriage Benefits for Homosexual Couples

Obama secures his base - gay, federal employees.

From LifeSiteNews
By James Tillman

In a memorandum issued Wednesday, President Obama ordered executive departments and agencies to extend to same-sex partners the same benefits enjoyed by married couples, to the maximum extent permitted by the law.

President Obama said the memorandum "paves the way for long-overdue progress in our nation's pursuit of equality."

The new memorandum is the result of a review Obama ordered the Office of Personnel Management to conduct in order to determine what benefits could be extended to homosexual federal employees under existing law.

As the openly-homosexual John Berry, Director of the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in a directive detailing implementation of the President’s memorandum, these new benefits include: access to fitness facilities, adoption counseling, childcare services, medical treatment, lodging, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, and dental insurance, among many others.

In June of 2009, President Obama had extended a few federal benefits to same-sex partners; however, the new directive goes well beyond that measure.

Obama's order ensures that "all agencies that provide new benefits to the spouses of Federal employees and their children should, to the extent permitted by law, also provide them to the same-sex domestic partners of their employees and those same-sex domestic partners’ children."

Such measures did not satisfy President Obama, however, who said he would support the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act - which he called "crucial legislation" to guarantee "the full range of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples" to same-sex partners.

Furthermore, President Obama again vowed to work with congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which he called discriminatory and an interference with states’ rights.

The Defense of Marriage Act was passed in 1996 by a veto-proof majority, and says that no state will be forced to consider a relationship between two persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is so considered in another state. It also says that the federal government defines marriage as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman.

After the President's memorandum was announced, the homosexualist Human Rights Campaign (HRC) crowed that some of the benefits announced were part of the HRC's "Blueprint for Positive Change," a document outlining a homosexualist agenda.

HRC President Joe Solmonese, however, agreed with Obama that the benefits' limitations are "a glaring reminder that the Defense of Marriage Act ultimately stands in the way of providing true equality to LGBT Americans."

The Family Research Council's Tony Perkins called the move "a gratuitous swipe at the Defense of Marriage Act, carving out a position that's well outside the mainstream of most Americans (72%) who define marriage as the union of a man and woman."

Contrary to Obama's claim to have worked within the law, Perkins said the "special perks already violate U.S. marriage law and 31 state marriage amendments."

"Interestingly enough, the benefits don't apply to unmarried heterosexuals, meaning that this White House is promoting the same kind of 'discrimination' it's supposedly working to end!" he added.

Obama's Charm Offensive Masks Israel Policy Change

"So we end up with a tale of two Obama personas -- the one that charms Jews at a gala White House event and the other that kicks them in the rear as they leave the premises."


From American Thinker
By Leo Rennert

The two contrasting faces of President Obama in his relations with Israel and American Jews were on full display this week.

On Thursday, Obama hosted some 250 Jewish luminaries and high-achievers at an elaborate White House reception to mark Jewish Heritage Month. The administration pulled out all the stops to make this a memorable, first-ever event.

It gave Obama another chance to pump up his charm offensive to persuade Jews who voted overwhelmingly for him to remain lined up behind him. The President spoke about the "unbreakable Israeli-U.S." alliance and pulled out his oratorical skills to dispel any concern that his administration might be going wobbly on Israel.

But even as Jewish leaders basked in the glow of the White House, the president's diplomatic team was busy in New York cutting a nuclear deal at the UN with Egypt and other Arab states that stabs Israel in the back.

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Peggy Noonan: He Was Supposed to Be Competent

Peggy Noonan has never understood the Obama regime. She seems to think they operate under conventional political rules and considerations. Were she to read Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, the handbook for this regime, she would know that the community agitator is accomplishing exactly what he intends.

Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, understands that it is not the intention of this administration to solve problems. Rather, they seek destroy the American economy, undermine military preparedness, exacerbate social divisions, and create the breakdown, failure and crisis that will enable them to implement their Marxist plan for America. In that, they have been extraordinarily "competent."

The spill is a disaster for the president and his political philosophy.

From The Wall Street Journal
By Peggy Noonan

I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts.

There was the tearing and unnecessary war over his health-care proposal and its cost. There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration. And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don't see how you politically survive this.

The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen. This is a terrible thing to see in a political figure, and a startling thing in one who won so handily and shrewdly in 2008. But he has not, almost from the day he was inaugurated, been in sync with the center. The heart of the country is thinking each day about A, B and C, and he is thinking about X, Y and Z. They're in one reality, he's in another.

The American people have spent at least two years worrying that high government spending would, in the end, undo the republic. They saw the dollars gushing night and day, and worried that while everything looked the same on the surface, our position was eroding. They have worried about a border that is in some places functionally and of course illegally open, that it too is gushing night and day with problems that states, cities and towns there cannot solve.

And now we have a videotape metaphor for all the public's fears: that clip we see every day, on every news show, of the well gushing black oil into the Gulf of Mexico and toward our shore. You actually don't get deadlier as a metaphor for the moment than that, the monster that lives deep beneath the sea.

In his news conference Thursday, President Obama made his position no better. He attempted to act out passionate engagement through the use of heightened language—"catastrophe," etc.—but repeatedly took refuge in factual minutiae. His staff probably thought this demonstrated his command of even the most obscure facts. Instead it made him seem like someone who won't see the big picture. The unspoken mantra in his head must have been, "I will not be defensive, I will not give them a resentful soundbite." But his strategic problem was that he'd already lost the battle. If the well was plugged tomorrow, the damage will already have been done.

The original sin in my view is that as soon as the oil rig accident happened the president tried to maintain distance between the gusher and his presidency. He wanted people to associate the disaster with BP and not him. When your most creative thoughts in the middle of a disaster revolve around protecting your position, you are summoning trouble. When you try to dodge ownership of a problem, when you try to hide from responsibility, life will give you ownership and responsibility the hard way. In any case, the strategy was always a little mad. Americans would never think an international petroleum company based in London would worry as much about American shores and wildlife as, say, Americans would. They were never going to blame only BP, or trust it.

I wonder if the president knows what a disaster this is not only for him but for his political assumptions. His philosophy is that it is appropriate for the federal government to occupy a more burly, significant and powerful place in America—confronting its problems of need, injustice, inequality. But in a way, and inevitably, this is always boiled down to a promise: "Trust us here in Washington, we will prove worthy of your trust." Then the oil spill came and government could not do the job, could not meet need, in fact seemed faraway and incapable: "We pay so much for the government and it can't cap an undersea oil well!"

This is what happened with Katrina, and Katrina did at least two big things politically. The first was draw together everything people didn't like about the Bush administration, everything it didn't like about two wars and high spending and illegal immigration, and brought those strands into a heavy knot that just sat there, soggily, and came to symbolize Bushism. The second was illustrate that even though the federal government in our time has continually taken on new missions and responsibilities, the more it took on, the less it seemed capable of performing even its most essential jobs. Conservatives got this point—they know it without being told—but liberals and progressives did not. They thought Katrina was the result only of George W. Bush's incompetence and conservatives' failure to "believe in government." But Mr. Obama was supposed to be competent.

Remarkable too is the way both BP and the government, 40 days in, continue to act shocked, shocked that an accident like this could have happened. If you're drilling for oil in the deep sea, of course something terrible can happen, so you have a plan on what to do when it does.

How could there not have been a plan? How could it all be so ad hoc, so inadequate, so embarrassing? We're plugging it now with tires, mud and golf balls?

What continues to fascinate me is Mr. Obama's standing with Democrats. They don't love him. Half the party voted for Hillary Clinton, and her people have never fully reconciled themselves to him. But he is what they have. They are invested in him. In time—after the 2010 elections go badly—they are going to start to peel off. The political operative James Carville, the most vocal and influential of the president's Gulf critics, signaled to Democrats this week that they can start to peel off. He did it through the passion of his denunciations.

The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the president and his administration, and that is no cause for joy. It's not good to have a president in this position—weakened, polarizing and lacking broad public support—less than halfway through his term. That it is his fault is no comfort. It is not good for the stability of the world, or its safety, that the leader of "the indispensble nation" be so weakened. I never until the past 10 years understood the almost moral imperative that an American president maintain a high standing in the eyes of his countrymen.

Mr. Obama himself, when running for president, made much of Bush administration distraction and detachment during Katrina. Now the Republican Party will, understandably, go to town on Mr. Obama's having gone only once to the gulf, and the fund-raiser in San Francisco that seemed to take precedence, and the EPA chief who went to a New York fund-raiser in the middle of the disaster.

But Republicans should beware, and even mute their mischief. We're in the middle of an actual disaster. When they win back the presidency, they'll probably get the big California earthquake. And they'll probably blow it. Because, ironically enough, of a hard core of truth within their own philosophy: when you ask a government far away in Washington to handle everything, it will handle nothing well.