A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN IN WASHINGTON? – AT 11:35 A.M. ET:  Nile Gardiner, one of Britain's sharpest observers of American Politics, believes the Obama presidency is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and that Mr. Obama's future is bleak: 

Forget the myth of an Obama recovery. The past week has been disastrous for the White House and America’s increasingly disillusioned Left. No wonder the angry and desperate Vice President Joe Biden is talking about “playing hell” if his party suffers defeat in November.

Gardiner gives five reasons for the Democratic mental-health crisis:

1.  A new Gallup poll suggests the November mid-terms could result in the biggest victory for Republicans in the House since 1894.

2.  The Senate now hangs in the balance.

3.  The economic figures are grim.

4.  A quarter of Democrats have turned against the president.

5.  George W. Bush is now as popular as President Obama.

Ah, it's always great to have good news.  Everything that Gardiner reports is true.  But a word of caution:  Always remember that old saying, "Be careful what you wish for."  We will be delighted if, on November 2nd, America dissolves from ObamaNation to RedState.  But then Republicans, especially if they're in control of both houses, must produce.  And they must produce while an ultra-liberal Democrat is in the White House, and with a press that will be both hostile and frustrated.  And it must do this while keeping some of the less stable personalities in the party at arm's length, which is a technique Reagan perfected.  They have their nuts, we have ours.  But ours will get the biased press treatment.  Theirs will be portrayed as visionaries. 

We have an exciting time coming up:  a defining election, and an immediate plunge into the 2012 campaign.  This is almost as good as watching Christiane Amanpour's audience reduced to three people at the Harvard Divinity School.

October 10, 2010