GLOBAL PANIC FAILURE OVERLOAD Washington Post: ‘President Obama’s Competence Problem is Worse Than It Looks’

Guatemala’s President Otto Perez Molina, left, and Honduran President Juan Hernandez, right, listen as President Obama speaks to the media, after they met on July 25 at the White House to discuss Central American immigration and the border crisis. (AP)

For The Washington Post, Chris Cillizza writes: You can understand President Obama’s current political problems — and how those problems could make things very tough for his party in this fall’s midterm election — in a single word. And that word is “competence.”

“Almost six years on from that election, however, Obama is faltering badly on the competence question…”

Obama was elected in 2008 on a stated promise that he would restore competence to government. He pitched himself as the antidote to “Heck of a job, Brownie” and the Bush years, the person who would always put the most qualified candidate in every job in his Administration. That the basic functioning of government would never be in question.

“…and, in so doing, badly imperiling not only his ability to enact any sort of second term agenda but also Democrats’ chances this fall.”

Almost six years on from that election, however, Obama is faltering badly on the competence question and, in so doing, badly imperiling not only his ability to enact any sort of second term agenda but also Democrats’ chances this fall. A series of events — from the VA scandal to the ongoing border crisis to the situation in Ukraine to the NSA spying program — have badly undermined the idea that Obama can effectively manage the government.

The latest evidence is a question in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Sunday that asks whether the phrase “can manage the government effectively” applies to Obama. Just more than four in ten (42 percent) said that it does while 57 percent said it does not. (It was the lowest that Obama scored on any of the six characteristic questions CNN asked in the survey.)

Obama’s trajectory on the question is all to the bad for Democrats…(read more)

The Washington Post

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