WASHINGTON & SANTA FE, NM (By Keith Koffler, Politico) July 29, 2011 —  Washington’s professional prognosticators, perennially gauging who is up and who is down, are trying to determine whether President Barack Obama or congressional Republicans will be blamed if they can’t raise the debt limit and the nation begins to default on its obligations.

Obama’s advisers are trying to present him as a reasonable man, offering a “balanced” approach to the problem, who has been stymied by unappeasable right-wing ideologues.

But it really doesn’t matter how this battle seesaws.

Because the damage being done to Obama is more corrosive than whether he is assigned full or partial blame for this reckless scramble toward the edge of economic calamity.

What the debt ceiling imbroglio confirms for many Americans is that they are living in a world turned chaotic, a perilous place where things they thought they knew turn out to wrong and security they thought was their right is revealed as a mirage.

Not all the serious problems swirling about us are Obama’s fault, though some are.

Others he has merely shown himself ill-equipped or incompetent to slay.

But whether he is guilty or guilty by association, the Obama era is a time of instability and danger. And that’s bad politics for a president.

The debt ceiling scare is but the latest episode in this nightmare.

Americans now live in a world where unemployment is chronic; the economic recovery has stalled; the deficit is out of control; entitlement programs they counted on must be cut; home values are declining; banking giants have failed; the health system is about to be transformed; the country’s AAA rating is in jeopardy, and the threat of terrorism is ever-present.

The view internationally is not a bit more comforting.

Violent, drug-fueled anarchy rages across the border in Mexico; European allies stumble toward bankruptcy; Iran develops nuclear weapons largely unhindered; Kim Jong-Il attacks South Korea with impunity; the Arab world is in a state of upheaval; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict prevails intractably, while Israel’s enemies arm themselves with missiles and seek nuclear weapons; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization can’t even eradicate a nuisance like Muammar Qadhafi; China threatens to surpass us economically and challenge us militarily, and it’s not even clear after Obama’s “Afghan surge” if we’re winning against the Taliban.

The roster of crucial, even existential domestic and international concerns is unthinkably long and varied.

And the effect on the nation’s morale is clear. Ronald Reagan was reelected on the pitch that it was “morning in America.” Obama begins his reelection campaign as the country stares into a moonless night.

A poll released this week by the Pew Research Center shows this and suggests the debt ceiling crisis has made it worse.

Only 17 percent of Americans surveyed say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, down six points from June. It’s the lowest since the end of 2008, and the third lowest level recorded since Pew first asked the question 14 years ago.

Obama’s weekly job approval rating last week was just 43 percent, according to Gallup, tied for the lowest level of his presidency.

Polls now show Obama running even with the Republican favorite, Mitt Romney, a man who exudes competence — if little else.

Obama’s propagandists tell us that the economy would have been worse without his interventions, that he’s tried to cut the deficit and he’s doing all he can to put people back to work — and besides, it’s all President George W. Bush’s fault.

But, perhaps because he’s never worked much in the private sector himself, Obama doesn’t seem to realize that Americans demand results, not excuses.

Obama trumpets his sanctions against Iran even as the mullahs continue unabated toward nuclear power status. He failed to weigh in promptly and decisively on the side of Iranian protestors.

The president’s response to the Arab Spring has been tentative and inconsistent. It seemed he had his finger to the wind as Hosni Mubarak teetered in Egypt. He insisted Qadhafi must go – and then didn’t succeed in removing him – while failing to require the exit of Syria’s Bashir Assad.

Obama’s advisers are now defending some hair-brained scheme to somehow mitigate the drug war in Mexico by introducing more guns into the conflict.

Obama made Arab-Israeli peace his priority, even appointing George Mitchell as special ambassador in charge of making it happen. Mitchell resigned in May, without a result.

Obama’s political advisers are keenly focused now on fundraising and trying to position their boss as a reasonable moderate, while keeping his liberal base in line.

They may succeed in these endeavors. But it won’t matter. Because steadying Obama politically won’t help when the world seems to have spun off its axis.