Jimmy Carter + Rod Blagojevich = Barack Obama

Obama has big problems. No doubt about that. To be considered as incompetent as Jimmy Carter, and as sleazy as Rod Blagojevich, is no one's idea of "good news" on even the worst of days in the White House.

President Obama's protracted fumbling of the BP oil spill and the mess in the Gulf of Mexico is going to have long-term consequences for him. As it stands now, the nation is stunned at the lack of competence or ability to convey that he is capable of leading a charge to get this thing under control. Throwing everything but the kitchen sink — literally — into the hole is hardly comforting. At this point, many Americans might even be asking, "What would Jimmy Carter do?" because even the worst of the worst seems better than what we've got now.

The negative political impact for Obama will grow even more as Gulf Coast residents and visitors see the oil roll up to the shore for months and months to come, along with wildlife carcasses covered with the goo. Fishing as a sport and a livelihood will take a huge hit. A Florida friend of mine told me this week that he and his friends and family are having a big seafood party this weekend, "while we still can," acknowledging the fact that important parts of their life have changed, possibly forever. The rest of us will feel it too, in food prices and availability, gas prices and the help we will give to Gulf states, where the economy has the potential to crater.

Meanwhile, Obama and his comrades face the drip, drip, drip of scandal as revelations about bribing candidates with government jobs if they will drop out of a political race in favor of Obama's pick make news. Exactly as fallen former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is charged with doing. Obama aides will testify at that trial, and the nation will see that Barack Obama has a long history of engaging in the sleaziest of Chicago-style political deal-making.