Five Signs of a Flailing Administration

Fred Barnes sees an administration in turmoil:

You don't have to be an old Washington hand to spot the telltale signs of a presidency and an administration in serious trouble. There's nothing new about these clues. The inability to get their stories straight--that's a hardy perennial of high-level officials caught in the vise of political embarrassment. A president who skips town to avoid the White House press corps and speak directly to the American people--we've sure seen that before. So in a sense the AIG mess has touched off nothing more than business as usual.

What goes on in Washington usually comes across as background noise to the public, but not this time. Bonuses for AIG executives are like the infamous Bridge to Nowhere--an issue that's broken through outside Washington. And we know it's become a major political problem for the president because he and his administration act as if it has. Here are five signs of this:

I'm going to give you the Cliff Notes' version of the five signs. You can go to the article to read the full explanation:

1. His allies are moving to protect the president.

2. The president gets out of town.

3. Top spokesmen dismiss the crisis as a distraction.

4. Administration figures can't keep their stories straight.

5. The president indulges in hyperbole.

I'll add one: 6. The president rages against straw men. Obama is constantly referring to people who believe this or that in opposition to his beliefs, and yet he never names names and nobody can find somebody who actually has verbalized or written what the president has accused somebody of saying. It's a rhetorical crutch and the sign of someone who's not confident in his own policies.

This presidency is in trouble.