Cratering

The enclosed picture shows the El Elegante Crater, part of the Pinacate Biosphere Reserve in northwestern Sonora, Mexico, and is about 1 mile in diameter and 800 feet deep.

Or it could be an accurate dicpictation of the re-election efforts and political aptitude of the Obama White House.

The Obama Political Machine is cratering.....in the fashion expected after 3 1/2 years of ineptitude, self absorbed BS and all the other things that we have seen from the idiot-in-charge and his gang of self proclaimed " smartest people" in Washington.

The wheels have come off the wagon and it has pitched over the cliff....

To quote Will Smith (one of Obama's biggest fans) from the movie " I Robot " -

" You know, somehow " I told you so" doesn't quite cover it..."

The capper to the past month of crappola from the White House was the recent interview when a reporter asked the President why he didn't go to Wisconsin to support the Democrat running against Governor Paul Walker - His answer was " The truth of the matter is that as President of the United States, I've got a lot of responsibilities..."

Yeah, like flying all over the country on the taxpayers dime to the hundred or more fundraisers you went to so far this year...more than the previous 6 Presidents held combined.

Cratering.....His career, our economy and his hopes of being taken seriously by anyone -

To say his administration is a " trainwreck " would be complimentary.  It is over.

Now we need to get to the business of electing his successor, and get the economy back on track - not with more public service jobs helping Obama's Union buddies, but with building up the American economy with decent jobs tied to helping all, not just those hacks who have connections to the DEMS.

Less government, more opportunity for all and less BS from Washington -

The American public has had enough from a White House full of delusional idjits that wasted Trillions of our taxdollars over the last three and 1/2 years.  This administration has cratered.


Pileup at the White House
By Dana Milbank, Tuesday, June 12, 3:53 AM
Washington Post

It has been a Junius Horribilis for President Obama.

Job growth has stalled, the Democrats have been humiliated in Wisconsin, the attorney general is facing a contempt-of-Congress citation, talks with Pakistan have broken down, Bill Clinton is contradicting Obama, Mitt Romney is outraising him, Democrats and Republicans alike are complaining about a “cascade” of national-security leaks from his administration, and he is now on record as saying that the “private sector is doing fine.”

Could it get any worse?

Early Monday morning, Obama learned that it could. His aides delivered the news to him that his commerce secretary had been cited for a felony hit-and-run after allegedly crashing his car three times over the weekend. In one incident, the previously obscure Cabinet officer apparently rear-ended a Buick, spoke to the car’s occupants, then hit the vehicle again as he left.

Thus did Jay Carney, the oft-besieged White House press secretary, have another briefing carjacked by bad news. And Carney, who either didn’t know the details of the bizarre episode or wasn’t at liberty to divulge them, had to execute a full range of defensive maneuvers.

“I can simply tell you that he was engaged, as has been reported, in a couple of traffic incidents,” Carney began, as if the secretary, John Bryson, had been photographed by a speed camera or two. Bryson “suffered a seizure, was hospitalized. But beyond that I’ll refer you to Commerce for the details.”

“Is the secretary healthy and fit to serve?” inquired Ben Feller of the Associated Press.
“I would refer you to the Commerce Department.”

Ann Compton of ABC News asked whether the White House chief of staff, who spoke to Bryson, considers the incident serious.

“I don’t have a specific response to give you,” Carney said.

CNN’s Brianna Keilar asked about “the timing of the seizure in relation to the accident.”
“I would refer you, as I said in the past, to the Department of Commerce,” Carney answered.

“I’ve been asking them for hours,” Keilar protested.
“I think I would refer you to the Commerce Department,” was Carney’s rote reply.

The former journalist informed the questioners that he “was not a presiding doctor on this case” and could confirm only that “the commerce secretary was alone, he had a seizure, he was involved in an accident.”

“He was involved in several accidents,” called out April Ryan of American Urban Radio.
“Thank you for the correction,” Carney said. He did not sound grateful.

Carney’s non-defense doesn’t suggest much job security for Bryson, who, depending on what caused the episode Saturday, has either a medical problem or a legal problem.
For the White House, it was just the latest entry in the when-it-rains-it-pours ledger. This has been one of the worst stretches of the Obama presidency. In Washington, there is a creeping sense that the bottom has fallen out and that there may be no second term. Privately, senior Obama advisers say they are no longer expecting much economic improvement before the election.

Carney had the unenviable task of confronting the full arsenal of gloom at Monday afternoon’s briefing.

The AP asked about the president’s unfortunate private-sector-is-fine remark. The Reuters correspondent asked about the economic “head winds” from Europe. Ed Henry of Fox News Channel asked about the looming contempt-of-Congress vote against Attorney General Eric Holder. Margaret Talev of Bloomberg News asked about the Supreme Court striking down Obamacare. Norah O’Donnell of CBS News asked about calls for a special prosecutor to probe leaks. Victoria Jones of Talk Radio News asked about the stalled talks with Pakistan.

Carney sought relief by calling on TV correspondents from swing states, but the one from Wisconsin asked about the failed attempt to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the one from Nevada asked about her state’s unemployment rate, the nation’s highest.
Mostly, though, questions veered back to the commerce secretary’s motoring.
AP Radio’s Mark Smith asked whether Bryson “is now on medical leave.”

“I would refer you to the Commerce Department.” (Eight hours later, Carney issued a statement saying that Bryson was indeed taking such a leave.)

Ryan asked about “mandatory physicals” for Cabinet nominees.
“I don’t have any details about that.”

A New York Daily News correspondent asked if Obama has confidence in Bryson staying on the job with a “felony rap.”

This one Carney answered — by not answering. “He is concerned about Secretary Bryson’s health and broadly about the incident,” the spokesman said — in marked contrast to the “absolute confidence” he said a moment later that Obama has in Holder.

Apparently Bryson will have to clean up his own wreckage. This White House has too many other pileups to deal with.

President Trainwreck

Andrew Malcolm of Investors Business Daily nails it.

Mr. "Hopey- Changey" is really President Trainwreck. His administration is the proverbial "Three Stooges" of politics when you add in Geitner, Napolitano, Biden, etc.

Yeah, Romney is not the guy who thrills people but right now we need Competent & Steady Leadership, not this Chicago Village Idiot who has been in over his head for the entire time he has been in office. He was elected by those who had no clue as to what he would do and his term in office has been nothing but more misery for Americans.

" This 2012 Obama is strident and mean, even deceitful, divisive, telling half-truths after half-truths. He's using Air Force One as his personal Brinks truck with wings to collect cash all over the country, disguising the trips as official."

Yup. No doubt about it - Obama has got to go. November can't come soon enough.

Who is this guy pretending to be president?
By ANDREW MALCOLM - Investors Business Daily

Has anyone seen Barack Obama recently?

You know, the optimistic hopeful fellow with the charming smile who promised so many positive things four and five years ago, how he was going to change the harsh, partisan tone of our nation's capital and bring the country together as its first African American president.

Even allowing for political hyperbole, his empty resume and the invisible witnesses from the past, Obama was such a Real Good Talker that even some who didn't vote for him still had hope that he could change some things for the better in what seemed a sadly-splintered society.

WTH did that Obama go? Have you listened recently to this Chicago Doppelganger who's replaced him? This 2012 Obama is strident and mean, even deceitful, divisive, telling half-truths after half-truths. He's using Air Force One as his personal Brinks truck with wings to collect cash all over the country, disguising the trips as official.

He tries to intimidate the Supreme Court, an equal branch of government, when its thinking might stray from his. He distorts history, and if no one calls him, then it's true. If he's caught, this Obama says you obviously mis-heard. Because, as everyone knows, he could never mis-speak.

The economy, like everything else adverse, is someone else's fault. But if only we borrowed and spent a trillion dollars, unemployment would stay beneath 8%, Obama promised. It soared far above. It's still above. No apology. No acknowledgment. Now, he hails any dip as proof of progress when, in fact, it comes because so many just give up seeking work.

He chastises House Republicans for their draconian budget when his Senate Democrats haven't written a single one in three years; so, the fiscal drift abides. And wait till he exaggerates the frightening things the GOP wants to do, instead of presenting his own ideas.

Obama claims credit for the bottom half of a pipeline he had nothing to do with, when he killed the top half. He brags that domestic oil drilling is up when the part he's responsible for is down.

He says no one should ever go to Las Vegas on the taxpayer's dime. Then his wife, daughters and entourage do just that.

This year's Obama talks of the importance of windmills, algae and green energy, but he takes a 17-SUV motorcade to a photo op with an electric car. He lambasts oil companies for getting the same legal tax incentives (he calls them "subsidies") that other companies receive, hoping to aim anger at them so voters won't notice that gas prices have doubled since his inauguration.

Take this Tuesday. The 2012 Obama flew to Florida for an official presidential speech on the economy, then three fundraisers. That way his campaign only pays a fraction of Air Force One's $182,000 per flight hour cost. All presidents do that, though none have done near as many.

But read the four speeches. You can't tell which is official and which is political. They're all political. He can't be a real president for one lousy speech? Why the phony presidential fig leaf? To chintz the United States of America out of a few thousand bucks when he plans to raise a billion?

The Buffet Rule? Americans have always admired the successful. The only thing wrong with rich people is we're not one of them -- yet. But now he's pitting most of us against rich folks, which is him, come to think of it. The only way he's bringing us together now is to resent their paying a smaller legal rate because theirs is a different kind of income.

And speaking of taxes, whch are due Monday, how can the president of the United States allow 36 of his own White House aides to fall $833,000 behind in their tax payments?

How is that what the first Obama offered, making him an example of American success? (Hint: His GOP opponent is far richer than Obama and earned it the old-fashioned way through work, not fronting books.)

OK, Obama wants political skirmishes all over on any petty thing so people won't notice the absence of any conceivably positive record to run on. Risky when Americans start paying attention. But if that's his only card. It's all the Republicans' fault, of course. That's the candidate in him, the one that prefers performing for adoring crowds instead of performing Oval Office duties.

But whatever happened to the president part? The leader. The principled man who through his personal story, skills and charm was going to inspire, convince, cajole Americans as diverse as himself to work together for a common national success? That official part has merged with the political, like the four Florida speeches. Now, he's just trying to fool everybody about everything.

In a way, this could be good news for Republicans. The duplicate Ernst Blofeld makes Mitt Romney look like Mr. Rogers.

But without real presidential leadership, Obama's hand-picked harpie atop the Democratic National Committee feels empowered to assign a hired gun to dismiss his opponent's wife, the cancer-surviving mother of five sons, as someone who's never worked a day in her life. Are they that scared already?

Seriously? We're going to pit now one kind of working woman against another? The guy who talks about having so many women in his life isn't going to fire the women responsible for that? He thinks American women will buy this stuff?

OK, Obama was raised by grandparents because he didn't always have a stay-at-home mom or dad. But this is a nation, not a dysfunctional family or a windy city party where factions are left to their own wards and Solyndras.

Obama is the guy who said his own wife was off limits politically, the guy whose mother-in-law has resided since Day One in the White House at taxpayer expense as a live-in nanny so the first lady can campaign for money and healthy foods? But a woman who stays at home with her kids at no public expense can be trashed because of her party?

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park, The Red Sox are in a sad state.....

NY Yankee fans and others who wish the Red Sox ill must be in full "schadenfreude" mode today....Their wishes have come true as the Red Sox have run one of the most storied and successful baseball operations right up on the rocks.

Theo - Gone. Tito - Gone. The Clubhouse - in full mutiny mode. Ownership - looking as ineffective as the lunkheads in Washington, DC.

This is NOT where we were supposed to be as we had the "best & the brightest" in place, fully funded and capable of ensuring success. Obviously, the big priced help on and off the field were all about themselves and not devoted to the team, the fans or the game.

Sad to say, but these choppy seas that the Red Sox are on show no sign of easing. The winter of our discontent is in place and it will take more than PR to get things back to even close to where they need to be. Red Sox Nation are a tough bunch but no one likes being treated this way by a club that has been given undying devotion by the fans. The RED SOX need to earn back our respect as what they have shown us is not the signs of the team we deserve.

2012 was supposed to be a celebration but right now, it looks like it will be a year of lowered expectations and a tarnished team. I can only hope that something will change under a new GM & Coach. Time to clean house and get back on track.


Wind of change
By Dan Shaughnessy
Boston Globe Columnist / October 13, 2011

It’s back to the bad old days over on Yawkey Way. The Red Sox of 2011 are the Red Sox of Buddy LeRoux and Haywood Sullivan - doofus co-owners wrestling on the carpet of their Fenway Park offices back in 1983. They are the Red Sox of Tom Yawkey and his chorus line of drunken employees finishing out of the money from the 1930s through the ’60s.

There are so many things wrong with the Sox at this hour, it’s difficult to know where to start. The manager is gone, the general manager is gone, the owners are in hiding, and the players are a loathsome lot totally unworthy of the money and adulation they receive.

Theo Epstein’s gone. It was a seismic event when he quit in 2005. This time, his departure is lost in the mix as the Sox go from freefall to nuclear fallout. The Fenway lawn is scorched earth.

Did we ever think the vaunted “new’’ owners would make Frank McCourt look good?

Apologies are in order, all around. John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino need to come out of hiding and say they are sorry for this embarrassment.

Ditto for the cowardly ballplayers. Instead of blasting a reporter (“where’d you get this number?’’), phony captain Jason Varitek needs to explain how the ballplayers in the clubhouse abandoned their professionalism on his watch. Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, and John Lackey need to drop the bad-ass act (none of them returned calls from Bob Hohler before his explosive story in Wednesday’s Globe) and apologize to fans for their disrespect of the manager and the franchise. Put down the long-necks and the Double Down sandwiches and tell the fans you are sorry.

But why would they? They are joyless and enabled. We learn from Hohler’s story that when players complained about having to play a day-night doubleheader, out-of-touch Sox owners gave them $300 headphones and a night on Henry’s yacht.

Pathetic.

The worst collapse in the history of baseball wasn’t enough shame for this crew. They had to take on the persona of entitled rock stars who flip off the fans and demand only red M&Ms in their dressing room.

John Henry and friends have lived a charmed existence since buying the ball club in December of 2001. They have won a couple of World Series and made Fenway Park a tourist destination on a par with the Bunker Hill Monument and Old Ironsides. They sold their baseball souls to sell a few Fenway bricks and boost the ratings of their hideous network.

Now we’ve all had enough with Roush Racing and Liverpool soccer. Yankee fans never had to worry about George Steinbrenner taking his eyes off the prize in the interest of building ships.

Try this on with your pink hat: On the final night of the regular season, while the Sox were playing in Baltimore, fighting for their playoff lives, virtual ads during the baseball broadcast reminded you to watch Liverpool-Wolverhampton the next day at 4 p.m. That’s the same time that the Sox would have been playing their one-game playoff against Tampa Bay on TBS.

Got that? On Thursday, Sept. 29, at 4 p.m., the geniuses at NESN wanted you to watch soccer - instead of a one-game playoff involving the Red Sox.

Consistent with this insult, NESN the next day cut away from analysis of a postmortem press conference featuring Terry Francona and Theo Epstein (remember them?) at Fenway. While NESN rival Comcast went knee-deep into analysis, the Sox flagship TV station went to soccer.

Wow.

And now we have nothing from the owners since the night Francona was fired - unless you count the Baghdad Bob hour they granted to their flagship radio station that was simulcast on their own television network. There was plenty of talk about “shelf life’’ that day. Lucchino finished a lot of Henry’s sentences.

Can anyone blame Epstein for wanting to get away from this? Any chance he was encouraged to look elsewhere? I know one thing: Sox fans won’t be happy to see the ball club lose the still-under-contract-Theo in exchange for more cash for Henry. What happened to getting Matt Garza? Or couldn’t the Sox have at least made the Cubs take Lackey in a package deal with the beleaguered GM?

When Epstein quit in 2005, there was much anguish in Red Sox Nation. This time the departure gets lost in the avalanche of negativity that washes over the franchise. It’s, “Thanks for playing, Theo. We’ll think of you every time Carl Crawford strikes out for the next six years.’’

The rebuilding of the brand can begin only when Epstein is officially gone. The Sox need to name Ben Cherington GM, then go about the business of regaining the fans’ trust. It would be nice if they’d hire a strong-willed field manager, but we fear they’re going to go with a no-name who’ll carry out the orders of Carmine the Computer, Tom Tippett, and Bill James.

The Sox expected to spend this winter preparing for the glorious 100th celebration of Fenway Park. Instead they are picking up pieces of their broken brand as they prepare to raise the third-place banner and celebrate Fenway’s centennial on April 20, 2012.

Maybe it’s time to show real fans that you are back in the business of baseball and junk “Sweet Caroline’’ in the middle of the eighth.

Bad times never seemed so bad.

This is not working....

During the 2008 Presidential election, I supported the best candidate for the Presidency, Senator John McCain.

I live in Massachusetts and always was supportive of the men from Massachusetts who made a difference - President John Kennedy, his brother Bobby Kennedy and House Speaker Tip O'Neill. They were LEADERS. Since there are no longer people of that character in Massachusetts, (with an exception of US Senator Scott Brown) I became "unaligned", which means I do not follow party dogma, I vote for the candidate that I feel best represents my ideals of a good and honorable Leader.

After the 2008 Election, my son asked me if I was taking my "McCain for President" bumperstickers off the back of my truck. I said " No, as I want people to know where I stood." I am glad to say I was right then, and I am correct now. America elected the wrong man for the job. We should have elected a Combat Veteran who was tried and tested in the toughest conditions instead of listening to the simpletons in the media who supported a "community organizer" who voted "present" 130 times purposely to ensure he would not have a record that we could judge.

To anyone who would state differently, I question your version of reality, judgment and sanity. Look at the state of affairs in our country and get a grip as this "empty suit" that was elected is an abject failure.


August 5th, 2011
This is not working
by Holly Robichaud - Boston Herald

So much for retiring early.

Don’t you love this era of Obamanomics? It is going so well. Is this the hope and change you liberals wanted? Quite frankly, I knew this was going to be bad, but not this bad. Yikes.

I think it is clear to everyone, except the Kool Aid drinkers, that Obama is now the worst President we have ever had. Never elect someone who voted present 130 times.

This economy is not going to turn around until we elect a new President who wants to end the uncertainty. Businesses don’t want to expand or add jobs when they are going to get hit with Obamacare. They are no fools. Smart business people have looked at what happened to the cost of health insurance costs here in Massachusetts under Romneycare and they don’t want to pay 70% increases.

Moreover, this is the most anti-business administration. The only jobs they want to create are politically correct green jobs.

Finally, Obama has failed to tackle the housing market problem. The only thing we hear coming out of Washington is a desire to kill the home mortgage deduction. That’s just plain nuts. It is a recipe for making this recession a depression. If they were serious about fixing the housing market, they would repeal the new rules that penalize middle class investors. Right now, only the rich can invest in real estate. Obama has wiped middle class real estate investing.

I don’t like this summer of recovery part II.

Britain's Financial Times - " This election is about disaffection in the centre – and the effort to tell Mr Obama, “Enough.”

The Brits are a prgamatic people and they like to speak " Truth to the Power" with the Queen's English...I say Old Boy, would you be kind enough to tell POTUS enough already??

To quote the Doctor who witnesses the destruction of "The Bridge over the River Kwai" at the end of the movie by the same title, " Madness ! Madness! "

Obama can blame the whining left
By Clive Crook

Published: October 31 2010 15:51

Polls can be wrong, but if they are right the Democrats will get their heads handed to them in Tuesday’s midterm election. If the party loses control of the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate too, President Barack Obama’s administration will be forced to change course or be stopped in its tracks. Two years after US liberals were celebrating the death of conservatism and the start of a new progressive era, a stunning reversal looks likely.

Tempting fate again, before this has even happened, let us ask where the blame – or credit, if you prefer – lies. Like the financial crisis, an event of this kind has more causes than are actually required to explain it.

First, of course, is the economy. In 2009 Mr Obama inherited an even worse mess than was realised at the time. Two years on, deleveraging has a long way to go; the housing market is not mended; consumers and investors are still anxious; growth in jobs is slow. Unemployment alone, more the fault of the previous administration, indicates a thrashing for the party in power. Right there, for some, you have the whole explanation.

Next is the president himself. Let me count the accusations. He was out of touch. He was too professorial. He was too condescending. He was too black. (Not black enough, thankfully, has gone from the list of defects.) He failed to lead. He deferred too much to Congress. He surrendered to the left. He surrendered to the right. He refused to fight for progressive ideas. He was only interested in progressive ideas.

Messaging and personality aside, critics insist, his policies were wrong. He was too timid, say liberals. He over-reached, say conservatives. Then again, he never really seemed in charge: his policies were not his policies.

Democratic leaders in Congress did him in, acting on a mandate they never had. Republicans did him in, opposing him reflexively and telling lies. The press did him in, reporting those lies as if they were true. Gutless conservative Democrats did him in, by watering down healthcare reform and other measures. The Tea Party did him in, to save the American way of life. The Tea Party did him in, out of pure stupid nativism.

Clive Crook’s blog
From Washington: Clive Crook on the intersection of US politics and economics

Nobody need feel, evidently, that a setback for the Democrats is an unfathomable mystery. My own preferred theories emphasise the economy – which the administration has handled tolerably well in appallingly difficult circumstances – combined with serial political miscalculation. Mr Obama often settled for untidy centrist compromises (on the stimulus, on healthcare), thus disappointing the left; but without ever championing those compromises, causing moderates to wonder where he would stop, given the chance to go further. Offending both segments was an avoidable mistake.

Partly, then, this election is about disaffection in the centre – and the effort to tell Mr Obama, “Enough.” But if this is correct, and the polls turn out to be true, one should pay special tribute to the role the left has played in its own downfall. It did not have to be this way.

Previously, I have argued that Mr Obama’s biggest mistake was to worry more about consoling morbidly dissatisfied Democrats than about keeping the centrists who voted for him in 2008 on side. Campaigning ahead of the midterms, he made it clearer than before that this was his priority. Every speech, every appearance, every meet and greet, leaned the same way.

His message to the centre has been: “You say you are worried about the country’s direction? Well, I know you have been under stress. Let’s talk again when I have finished discussing strategy with these public-sector unions, liberal commentators, left-leaning television personalities and progressive bloggers.”

The administration could plead it had no choice. It had to turn out the base. Pleasing swing voters, if this could even be done, would be no use if committed Democrats did not vote. Tactically, it was better to prioritise as he did. As a matter of electoral arithmetic, I disagree, but the dilemma was real enough.

In any event, suppose that the Democratic base had not been sulking. Suppose it saw, for example, that persisting with a historic healthcare reform was politically challenging in the middle of an economic crash. Suppose it granted that radically overhauling a health system – some 20 per cent of the US economy – that many Americans rather like was a lot to take on. Suppose it was impressed that Mr Obama did it anyway, and was ready to go further.

Supposing those hopelessly implausible things, Mr Obama’s midterm strategy could have been different. Sure of the loyalty of the base, he could have addressed himself to the anxious middle, defended his policies as centrist compromises (which they were), and told the country (as he did in 2008) that its concerns were his concerns. In this alternative universe, he would have had his base and at least a shot at bringing the centre back.

So credit please where it is due. The whining utopian left has a very full schedule of despising Republicans and the idiots and scoundrels (a little over half the country) who keep voting for them. Yet it can always find time to attack its own team, cry and complain, and demand to be patted on the head. The left’s role in Tuesday’s elections should not go unacknowledged.

clive.crook@gmail.com
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.

" Apparently yes men and women, unwilling to challenge Obama’s basic assumptions or deliver inconvenient truths, are in high demand...”

TRAINWRECK.....the kinda situation where it is soooo horrific you literally can't take your eyes off it....I understand that the casual reader might feel I have been a little harsh with POTUS but OMG...The people in the Administration have taken " clueless" to an all-time new high level....

Read the commentary below from the NY TIMES and understand the sheer magnitude of how bad the outcome of this will be for those who bought into the malarkey sold to them by the Chicago Huckster and his cronies....we have allowed this feckless (i.e. meaning generally incompetent and ineffectual ) idiot and his minions to squander the blood & treasure of our nation for the past 21 months, all to see that those who called him out before the election were right.....it is to weep.

Then add in his brainless Aunt who has been on the public dole since she arrived in this country, stayed illegally and bragged about it on WBZ-TV this week...I'm sorry, trying to defend the Empty-Suit-in-residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would be like trying to stop the tide from coming into Boston Harbor.....Good luck with that.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

September 24, 2010, 10:20 pm
Of Punching Hippies and Jumping Ship
By TOBIN HARSHAW

Larry Summers? Outta here. David Axelrod? Him, too. Rahm Emanuel? Give it a minute.

It’s not unusual for a new administration to see an exodus of exhausted senior staff members as it nears the two-year mark; a friend who went to work in the Bill Clinton White House at around that point recalls that the outgoing crew had the look of the first wave to have stormed the beaches at Normandy. But this was still a watershed week: Summers, who, according to insiders, was the dominant voice in the administration’s economic policies, announced on Tuesday that he’s returning in January to Harvard (a place that, for him, may not be any less stressful than the White House); Axelrod, the man at the nexus of the Obama campaign in 2008, will leave Washington to start planning the president’s re-election campaign of 2012; and Emanuel, the hard-driving chief of staff, is playing it coy but is widely expected to depart and run for mayor of Chicago following the surprise announcement that Richard M. Daley will not seek another term.

According to The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman and Elizabeth Williamson, the president has two paths to choose from when it comes to naming successors:

The president could stack his administration with fighters prepared to deal with government shut-downs, veto threats and gridlock. Many Republicans running under the banner of the tea party have pledged an uncompromising stand on spending and efforts to roll back Mr. Obama’s health-care law.

Or, as senior White House officials have said, the president could concentrate on finding common ground on deficit reduction, education and immigration, while guarding his achievements, from health care to student lending to financial re-regulation.

Anne E. Kornblut and Scott Wilson of the Washington Post dug up an interesting quote:

“They miscalculated where people were out in the country on jobs, on spending, on the deficit, on debt,” said a longtime Democratic strategist who works with the White House on a variety of issues. “They have not been able to get ahead of any of it. And it’s all about the insularity. Otherwise how do you explain how a group who came in with more goodwill in decades squandered it?” The strategist asked not to be identified in order to speak freely about the president and his staff.

“Insularity is a fancy word for losing touch with the electorate,” adds Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. “And that much has been obvious since the big push for ObamaCare started in 2009. Emanuel reportedly warned against getting stuck in an almost interminable debate, but the rest of the White House apparently didn’t see the dangers.”

As for the next inner circle, Morrissey thinks we’ll see more of the same, which isn’t good news:

Obama’s choices of replacements have a common thread: they’re Obama insiders. Elizabeth Warren and Austan Goolsbee, two of the most recent appointments, are both inner-circle Obamaites. More importantly, they are almost certain to reinforce the decisions already made by this administration rather than offer heterodox points of view and proposals …

Democratic strategist Peter Fenn says that “this is the way Kennedy worked,” sticking with a small circle of close advisers, but that strategy only works when the advice given succeeds. Kennedy didn’t squander an immense level of popularity in less than two years, though, nor did he extend a recession and a post-recession malaise with bad economic policies as Obama has done. Democrats should worry about insularity. This administration is desperately in need of a reset button.

“Apparently yes men and women, unwilling to challenge Obama’s basic assumptions or deliver inconvenient truths, are in high demand,” adds Jennifer Rubin at Commentary. “This peek at the White House’s circle-the-wagons mentality suggests that Obama is not one to reassess, clean house, and chart a new course after the midterms. It might take him out of his comfort zone. That’s bad news for the country, but music to the ears of the 2012 GOP presidential contenders.”