When You've Lost David Gergen...

After Time-Warner-CNN-HBO’s Fareed Zakaria hung the Obama administration out to dry today over their feckless Syria policy, Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters wrote that it’s “going to be very interesting to see if other CNN anchors and commentators will share his view on the air, or if he will be the President’s lone critic on the self-proclaimed ‘most trusted name in news.’”

Take it away David Gergen, appearing on Sunday’s State of the Union on CNN:

Gergen said that Obama, however, has looked as if he’s lost control of this situation as a commander-in-chief, which other nations could perceive as a sign of weakness.

“I think the bigger risk, what the president has to work on here, is that you can say it’s wise to call for the Congress to do this, but the way he went about it, it was so jerky and unpredictable, that I think it’s raised questions about just how firm a grip he has on the wheel as a commander in chief,” Gergen added. “I mean, after all, starting with the drawing of the red line itself, which seemed to be sort of almost ‘by the way, it’s a red line,’ as opposed to a well thought-out plan, and now we have no apparent strategy for long term in the Middle East. Nick [Burns] knows this better than I do, but presidents need to be seen in control of events and sort of guiding events, and not just reacting or bouncing around.”

And that’s on top of the Times’ brutal blue-on-blue hits on Mr. Obama yesterday. As Tom Maguire wrote at his Just One Minute blog, “If Wednesday was the day the roof fell in, Saturday was the day the rubble burst into flames. Geez, I can’t wait for Tuesday…”