Brutal. WSJ writer Fouad Ajami writes a scathing eulogy on Barack Obama’s all but dead presidency.

“Not long ago Barack Obama, for those who were spellbound by him, had the stylishness of JFK and the historic mission of FDR riding to the nation’s rescue. Now it is to Lyndon B. Johnson’s unhappy presidency that Democratic strategist Robert Shrum compares the stewardship of Mr. Obama. Johnson, wrote Mr. Shrum in the Week magazine last month, never “sustained an emotional link with the American people” and chose to escalate a war that “forced his abdication as president.”

A broken link with the public, and a war in Afghanistan he neither embraces and sells to his party nor abandons—this is a time of puzzlement for President Obama. His fall from political grace has been as swift as his rise a handful of years ago. He had been hot political property in 2006 and, of course, in 2008. But now he will campaign for his party’s 2010 candidates from afar, holding fund raisers but not hitting the campaign trail in most of the contested races. Those mass rallies of Obama frenzy are surely of the past.”

Yeah, it’s called “buyers remorse”. The country is fed up with Mr. Obama, and it shows in the polls. Rasmussen has his numbers today at a -22.

“It was canonical to this administration and its functionaries that they were handed a broken nation, that it was theirs to repair, that it was theirs to tax and reshape to their preferences. Yet there was, in 1980, after another landmark election, a leader who had stepped forth in a time of “malaise” at home and weakness abroad: Ronald Reagan. His program was different from Mr. Obama’s. His faith in the country was boundless. What he sought was to restore the nation’s faith in itself, in its political and economic vitality.

Big as Reagan’s mandate was, in two elections, the man was never bigger than his country. There was never narcissism or a bloated sense of personal destiny in him. He gloried in the country, and drew sustenance from its heroic deeds and its capacity for recovery. No political class rode with him to power anxious to lay its hands on the nation’s treasure, eager to supplant the forces of the market with its own economic preferences.

To be sure, Reagan faltered midway through his second term—the arms-for-hostages trade, the Iran-Contra affair, nearly wrecked his presidency. But he recovered, the nation rallied around him and carried him across the finish line, his bond with the electorate deep and true. He had two years left of his stewardship, and his political recovery was so miraculous that he, and his first mate, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, would seal the nation’s victory in the Cold War.

There is little evidence that the Obama presidency could yet find new vindication, another lease on life. Mr. Obama will mark time, but henceforth he will not define the national agenda. He will not be the repository of its hopes and sentiments. The ambition that his would be a “transformational” presidency—he rightly described Reagan’s stewardship in these terms—is for naught.”

This is astounding that at this point in his presidency the die is already cast, but it is. What’s more astounding is that the press by and large still hasn’t let the cat out of the bag. Obama wasn’t qualified to be president. He didn’t have the experience nor the skill to pull off the job. We wrote about it but no one listened. Now it’s painfully clear. He’s led this country to the brink of bankruptsy if not in actuality there already.

With two years still to go on his term there is little more he can do than to damage the country more. That’s the price of electing the wrong man for the job. We found that out with Carter and obviously learned nothing from the task.

Lefties will blame Bush, but even with his warts – and he had a few – at least he had a legacy that is without question. After 9/11 he kept his promise to keep this country safe. Mr. Obama hasn’t keep any promises and indeed has broken many of the ones he’s made.

He’s a paper tiger and at the worst time possible for this country.

God help us, we’ll need it.