Epic incompetence.

Well, everyone has to be good at something.

The emerging narrative of Barack Obama, the one that actually comports to reality, is that he is a rare political talent but a disaster when it comes to actually governing. The list of his failures is nothing short of staggering, from shovel-ready jobs that weren’t so shovel ready to the failures of healthcare.gov to the VA debacle. But it also includes the president’s failure to tame the debt, lower poverty, decrease income inequality, and increase job creation. He promised to close Guantanamo Bay and didn’t. His administration promised to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a civilian jury in New York but they were forced to retreat because of outrage in his own party. Early on in his administration Mr. Obama put his prestige on the line to secure the Olympics for Chicago in 2016 and he failed.

Overseas the range of Obama’s failures include the Russian “reset” and Syrian “red lines” to Iran’s Green Revolution, the Egyptian overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, and Libya post-Gaddafi. The first American ambassador since the 1970s was murdered after requests for greater security for the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi were denied. (For a comprehensive overview of President Obama’s failures in the Middle East, see this outstanding essay by Abe Greenwald.) The president has strained relations with nations extending from Canada to Germany, from Israel to Afghanistan to Poland and the Czech Republic to many others. All from a man who promised to heal the planet and slow the rise of the oceans.

But that’s not all. The White House response to everything from the VA and IRS scandals to the seizure of AP phone records by the Department of Justice is that it learned about them from press reports. More and more Mr. Obama speaks as if he’s a passive actor, a bystander in his own administration, an MSNBC commentator speaking about events he has no real control over. We saw that earlier today, when the president, in trying to address the public’s growing outrage at what’s happening at the VA, insisted he “will not stand for it” and “will not tolerate” what he has stood for and tolerated for almost six years. His anger at what’s happening to our veterans seems to have coincided with the political damage it is now causing him.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the only thing that really upsets him. I hope the Democrats are proud of what they foisted on the country.

[Update a few minutes later]

How Obama because the superhero of excuses.

From Ron Fournier, who isn’t exactly part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

The day it died:

Let us now return to Parshall’s observation that ”all military failures fall into three basic categories: failure to learn from the past, failure to anticipate what the future may bring, and failure to adapt to the immediate circumstances on the battlefield.” It’s possible that Obama did exactly that on the night of September 11, 2012. He didn’t see the double cross coming; he had no Plan B for Syria, for al-Qaeda, having bet the farm on Plan A and he covered failure up.

He went and committed all three categories of failure. ”Finally, at the apex of failure stand those rare events when all three basic failures occur simultaneously-an event known as catastrophic failure. In such an occurrence, the result is usually a disaster of such scope that recovery is impossible.”

And now he’s living with the consequences of having to pursue a strategic assumption he knows is wrong but does not dare denounce.

It’s going to look worse and worse as time goes on.

…may have already been genitally mutilated.

Sadly, that’s the way to bet. But don’t call them Islamic terrorists! That will just make them even more terroristy!

Just keep up the #hashtag bombardment. That’ll learn ’em.

I think there’s a flaw in Mickey’s theory:

I’m not suggesting the White House is intentionally provoking Republicans over Benghazi, the better to produce counterproductive overreach. OK, sorry. I’m totally suggesting the White House is intentionally provoking Republicans over Benghazi. It’s not like this is something the White House hasn’t been accused of before. Remember the “birther” controversy, where Obama delayed releasing his birth certificate for years as the conservative fringe wound themselves up in greater and greater knots of paranoia? ’Look, what a bunch of crazies” was Obamas implicit message then. That may be his message again. Sure beats “The debate is over.”

The problem is that (as we were told ad infinitum by Democrat partisans), the Clinton scandal was “just about sex.” Here the lies (and continued stonewalling) are about four dead Americans, killed by administration ineptitude.

…you can keep your un-nuked country. Period:

“The US delegation reaffirmed our commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” said a White House statement released after talks in Jerusalem between Rice, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior officials from both sides.

“The delegations held thorough consultations on all aspects of the challenge posed by Iran, and pledged to continue the unprecedented coordination between the United States and Israel,” it added.”

I’m sure that Israel feels much more secure now.