THE CONFIDENCE GAP – AT 7:55 P.M. ET:  Well, we've had the generation gap, the missile gap, Gap stores, and other gaps.  Now we have the confidence gap.  That seems to be the term people are using to describe the dramatic loss of confidence in the ability of Barack Obama.  Financial Times has an excellent, devasting piece examining just how far that confidence has fallen:

“If you ask me where the silver lining is for President Obama, I have to say I cannot see one,” says Bill Galston, a former Clinton official, who has been predicting for months the Democrats could lose the House. “Just as BP’s failure to cap the well has been so damaging, Obama’s failure to cap unemployment will be his undoing. There is nothing he can do to affect the jobless rate before November.”

The direction of the data could hardly be worse. According to Democracy Corps, a group headed by Stanley Greenberg, a liberal pollster who is a close friend of Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s chief of staff, a majority of US citizens see Mr Obama as “too liberal."

Astonishingly, 55 per cent of citizens think Mr Obama is a “socialist” against only 39 per cent who do not share that diagnosis.

The Obama crowd is probably shocked that those peasants out there know what a socialist is.  How dare they think for themselves.

The same poll shows 48 per cent support for Republicans against just 42 per cent for Democrats. The numbers are eerily similar to 2006, except that it was George W. Bush’s Republicans who were on the receiving end four years ago.

Ah, revenge is sweet.  But I want it sweeter.

“The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership,” says Rob Shapiro, another former Clinton official and a supporter of Mr Obama.

Another adviser says:

I never thought I would say this, but even I’m unsure what President Obama really believes,” says the adviser. “Instead of outsourcing decisions to Congress, he should spell out his bottom line. That is what leaders are for.”

COMMENT:  But tell that to the effete observers in the mainstream media, who think a leader is someone who uses words with more than two syllables. 

The last time I saw it this bad, Jimmah Carter was president.  But, and this is critical, we solved that problem because we had a Reagan.  Who've we got now?  That's my worry.

July 14, 2010