Since the beginning of the modern presidency under Franklin Roosevelt, every chief executive elected to a second term has suffered disaster during that term. FDR provoked a major political crisis when he tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937, after which he guided the economy into a severe recession, undoing some of the economic gains of his first four years in office. Truman had Korea. Eisenhower faced Sputnik and the recession of 1958–59 (the worst in 20 years), followed by the U-2 incident and the collapse of a planned summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Lyndon Johnson suffered through Vietnam and widespread race riots. Nixon became embroiled in Watergate, was impeached and resigned. Reagan nearly lost office in the Iran-Contra scandal. Clinton’s “bimbo eruptions” eventually led to his impeachment, though he was acquitted by the Senate. George W. Bush had Iraq, Katrina, and the financial meltdown of 2008. Now it’s Barack Obama’s turn.

Obama roundly defeated Mitt Romney to win reelection in 2012. Yet today, not even six months into his second term, he is politically wounded, perhaps mortally so. After deciding to push gun control in the wake of the Newtown massacre, he failed to secure congressional passage of even his minimum program for universal background checks. Immigration reform, expected to be the signature domestic achievement of his second term, is hanging fire in the Senate, and faces questionable prospects in the House. The implementation of Obamacare is fraught with problems (on this see David Brooks’ column “Health Chaos Ahead,” in the April 25 New York Times). Foreign policy, normally a presidential strength when the nation is not actually at war, seems increasingly in disarray. Relations with Russia are fraying. No progress has been made on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The possibility of US intervention in Syria’s complex civil war seems to be increasing, with planning underway for an air campaign in support of the Syrian rebels, and a forward headquarters of the US Central Command already on the ground in Jordan. Add to these problems the troika of scandals currently roiling Washington (Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, and the Justice Department’s secret spying on the Associated Press), and a picture of an administration nearing collapse begins to form.

Let’s examine briefly the three scandals just mentioned. The 9/11/12 attack on the U.S. consulate at Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans, came about as a result of mistakes made by the Obama administration and the Republicans in Congress (who in 2011 turned down an administration request to provide more funds for embassy security). The administration made the scandal all its own by putting out misleading talking points that claimed the attack was not terror-related. It clearly did so for political purposes, seeking to preserve Obama’s reputation as a successful fighter of terrorism during the election campaign. The web of lies about Benghazi woven by the administration since last September will not bring it down, but the political damage is likely to be significant and lasting.

The IRS targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status probably won’t destroy the Obama presidency either, but it could. We don’t yet know just how high up the rot goes. If it can be shown that people in the White House encouraged the IRS campaign (or simply knew about it and did nothing), then the scandal rises to Nixonian levels. The betting here is that Obama and his people aren’t that stupid, but we’ll see. Don’t hold your breath for impeachment, but do expect a long drawn-out series of investigations that will bog down the administration for much of 2013.

The AP spying scandal is merely a continuation of the quasi-authoritarianism instituted by federal authorities after the original 9/11. One of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon was based in part on his use of wiretapping without a court order. Today the Department of Justice conducts warrantless wiretaps as a matter of course, thanks to the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2012, which Obama signed into law after his reelection. This particular scandal has legs because journalists were the target. But it’s really no more than business as usual in our Orwellian Republic. The administration may take some hits, but the damage will not be mortal.

Nothing that has happened so far in Obama’s second term rises to the level of Watergate. Yet, taken together, the mistakes and lies of the past eight months have this administration reeling. It truly is in danger of imploding — which for many on the Right would be good news. A crippled presidency, however, tends to breed uncertainty and malaise, with bad consequences for the economy. And there is the further danger that a crippled president might seek to redeem himself in foreign lands — Syria, for example, or Iran.

The second term woes of Obama’s predecessors were largely the result of hubris (or, in Ronald Reagan’s case, incipient senility). Obama on the other hand suffers principally from aloofness. He is under the impression that elections are all that matter. But we do not live in a plebiscitary democracy. Successful governing involves schmoozing with people you may secretly detest. It involves coming down from your pedestal and actually engaging other human beings who also have supporters and power. Obama has never wanted to do this. He prefers to stand alone, believing that the adoration of his supporters guarantees success. As a result he has few real resources to draw upon in times of trouble. And he is in trouble now. No single problem (the IRS scandal possibly excepted) can bring him down, but he faces the prospect of a slow political death from a thousand cuts. While he undoubtedly will seek to place blame for his troubles on those who have always opposed him, his foremost enemy dwells in the mirror.

To me, the funniest part of the administration’s current travail is its entrapment between the devil of activism and the deep blue sea of ignorance.

President Obama has pursued an aggressively state-socialist policy. The belief of his church militant is that government knows best about healthcare, that government knows best about the economy, that government knows best about the environment, race relations, the nature of Islam, the legitimate leadership of Libya, the price of microchips in China. Well, a socialist government has to know these matters, because it has to plan and rule everything. But to any evidence of failure, the president’s response is, “I’m completely ignorant.”

The Benghazi affair? None of us was clear on the facts (but we made announcements, anyway). We’ll find out, after the investigation. The IRS’s persecution of Obama’s critics? I just know what I read in the papers; I’ve ordered an investigation. The secret raid on the Associated Press? I just know what I read in the papers; I can’t comment on matters under investigation.

So either the all-knowing leadership doesn’t know enough to conduct even its own political business, or it knows what it’s doing, and it’s lying about it, to preserve its own power. Take your pick. Either way, it doesn’t look good for state socialism.

Told that President McKinley was going to visit his town, Mr. Dooley, the Irish bartender who was given immortal life by Finley Peter Dunne, made this remark: “I may niver see him. I may go to me grave without gettin’ an’ eye on th’ wan man besides mesilf that don’t know what th’ furrin’ policy iv th’ United States is goin’ to be.”

My dear cousin Gérard,

Thank you for giving me news from the old country. Congratulations on your acquittal! To whom do you owe the favor of the court's providential misplacing of these evidence files? Wait, on second thought, don't answer that question.

As for me, I have been totally aboveboard since I immigrated to the United States. As you remember, I left our profitable little organization because I was sick and tired of helping politicians pluck the country like a gullible goose. I wanted to leave behind the dirtiness, the lies, the posing.

I came to the US with some reverence, and, dare I say, a bit of awe. Yes, laugh me up. Nevertheless, you have to admit that the US was founded on principle and deeds quite above the bloody chaos that gave birth to many European republics. Take France, where people still think so highly of themselves in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary. Its line of absolutist kings was toppled by a demented slaughter calling itself a revolution, which gave birth to an emperor, more kings, another emperor, and a series of unsteady, depraved governments. Compare the rabid, bloodthirsty revolutionaries of Paris with the thinkers who authored the Federalist Papers — look it up online. It's obvious that the depth of thought that went into America's founding principles has few equivalents in Europe.

Not that we didn't have our moments of fun back in the old country. Remember when that guy wanted to found an anti-corruption opposition party? How we were called to handle it? I supervised the state's "security interventions" to cut power to the buildings the guy rented for his conventions, and you manufactured the rioting protests that destroyed the cars of the attendees while the national police watched. After a few weeks, nobody dared to attend the guy’s speeches. Good times, good times. And well-paid, too.

But it was becoming as painful as watching a pit bull ripping a kitten to shreds — over and over again. So I left home. I left the grime, the dishonesty, the corruption, and I started an honest business in this still mostly honest country. All these years, you told me, "You just wait." I didn't want to believe you.

But you were right, damn your cynical hide.

You probably have not heard of it — hell, even the American media barely mentioned it. But it started. The rot is taking hold. We — the USA, I mean — are becoming just like the old country.

It always starts when politicians get government employees to persecute their opponents. I'm not talking about finding dirt on the challenger in an election No, I'm talking about using the tax system to harass and suppress political opponents. I know, this is old news in France or Italy, but here, it was unheard of.

Yet that's exactly what Obama's IRS just did. The Federal tax administration singled out constitutional-government organizations and used tactics that I'm sure you'll find interesting: intimidation, extreme indiscretion, dereliction of duty, abnormal delays, and plain harassment. For example, the IRS (that’s what the tax outfit is called) was asking Tea Party chapters to provide the full biographies of all the officer's family members, their plans, their income past, present, and future, the works! They also wanted the news clippings that mentioned them, information about future meetings during the next two years, financial information on officers and their families. Better, they planned to make all that information publicly available! This, in a country where a Social Security number is enough to open a line of credit. And this abuse went on for years.

It’s so gross that even the leftist MSNBC television channel mentioned it. To give you context, this is a channel on which anchors interviewing leftists ask for their autographs. On the air.

Of course, the IRS pretends that this is all a regrettable mistake made by lowly clerks at a single IRS center in Cincinnati, that it was nothing political. That's a lie, obviously: discrimination against opponents was dished out by several IRS offices. And the IRS announced that there will not be a single slap on the wrist to punish this unbelievable abuse, which confirms that it was an operation led from the top.

This shattered my illusions about this country, and with them, my hopes for a republic as a form of government that could succeed somewhere. Yes, Gérard, I am naive. I am glad I am telling you this in writing. It will save me the trouble of slapping that annoying smirk off your face.

Which brings me to a business proposal. Obviously, the US is ripe for the next step. They have these amateurs in the Chicago "machine" that do more or less the same job as you, but lack the polish, the experience that you can bring to your operations. Why don't you open your "political consultancy cabinet" here? I'll help you, as I did in the past, for the same percentage. You will find it appetizing: a country of 300 million wide-eyed yokels, most of whom still believe what the media tell them.

Oh, and don't bother with a work visa. I heard they're going to have a big amnesty anyway.

Reluctantly yours,
Cousin Jacques