The President is responsible for the delta in effects with respect to his new policies. Everybody starts from a given. But we are always responsible for the marginal effect of our decisions. So the additional debt, the health care initiatives, the cap and trade effort, the czar system, the strategy in Afghanistan or lack thereof, the oil spill management, these are all President Obama’s.

And looking at the marginal effects alone the trends are not good. Consider McChrystal. The President is almost compelled to discipline McChrystal, perhaps relieve him, in order to assert civilian supremacy. But having done that, who will deny that the situation — the conflict between his ambassador and the military, the whole situation — reflects a failure of his own command? Being Commander in Chief cuts both ways. Nobody is allowed to buck you, but the buck stops with you.

Maybe the President should keep golfing, keep making big speeches, etc and appoint an executive committee of senior Democrats he trusts to do the real work. Biden and Bill Clinton, maybe. It’s a kludge, but the alternative is to continue with a leadership that probably doesn’t exist. I think Roger Simon is right in saying “Obama is tired of being President”. He’s tired of his toy but he won’t give it up.

Maybe the best alternative is for the President’s party to provide him with duct tape and WD-40 needed to keep the wheels spinning or at least from coming off. Otherwise the President will go through military commanders like Kleenex until he finds a big enough hack to be the equivalent of Janet Napolitano. That will solve the command problem by lowering standards to the level of Chicago. But it will also lose the war. The better way is to upgrade the President’s management system until it can tolerate approximate competence.