“I thought I was cynical…”

Outstanding.

Don’t think this is going to work out for this guy. Corporate jets and oil companies? Seriously? That’s the best he can do eight days before the deadline? After all this time with the debt limit being front and center, he’s still on corporate jets and soak the rich?

A prediction: Boehner will push through a six-month extension, complete with cuts to cover it, and the Senate and Obama will meekly go along. There will be no tax increases. And next year there will be another extension, with more spending cuts.

But it won’t happen until after Aug. 2. And when Aug. 2 comes and goes and they’re still negotiating, there might be a little stock market damage – but not much. It’ll be later in the month, or in early September or something. Government employees here and there will be furloughed, and the vast majority of the American people won’t notice.

And there will be some key capitulations by the House Republicans which will irritate conservatives along the way, but nothing severe. It will be the Democrats in the Senate who cave, as they’ve already caved on the tax increases Obama so foolishly demands.

But when all this is over, the number one takeaway by most people will be that a leadership vacuum is what you get when you elect as president a guy who’s never run so much as a taco stand. Look for Obama’s re-election prospects to continue to sink.

This is a country which likes to think it’s not ideological. It’s more ideological than it recognizes, but that’s neither here nor there. Nevertheless, what’s definitely true, as George Patton recognized, is that this country can’t stand losers. It hates incompetence and it can’t stomach bad leadership. That’s why our football coaches have such short life spans, and why we turn on celebrities who fall from grace so quickly.

And Obama’s performance on the debt limit issue is painting him as an incompetent and a bad leader.

His predecessor had amazing approval ratings at one point. He was regarded, more than anything else, as a trustworthy and good man. But for eight years he was hammered on by his political opponents, and over time he lost not only the Democrats who grudgingly supported him after 9/11, then the Independents who were with him when he went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq but ultimately got sick of both war efforts, and finally the Republicans who were behind him on the wars but couldn’t stomach the deficits he ran.

Obama has burned through whatever support he had from Republicans; he did that a long time ago. He’s just about finished with the independents, who are turning on him in a major way. And with this debt limit stuff you can bet he’ll burn through Democrats as well – he’ll burn through the Hard Left first, because they’re impossible to please and they wanted the socialist utopia in 2009. Then he’ll burn through the Clintonite Left, who have been praying that he’ll “grow” in office and recognize how things work. And what will be left is the partisan Democrat die-hards, who represent maybe 20 percent of the country.

What you’re seeing is a failure which dwarfs Jimmy Carter’s. You’re seeing a guy who has fallen completely apart and who simply cannot govern; only campaign.

To lay into the corporate jet owners at this late date is evidence this man is a one-trick pony, capable only of reading a teleprompter and of spewing the talking points. He doesn’t understand negotiation, he’s not engaged in the American experience and he can’t lead.

It’s going to be a very, VERY rocky road from here to next November. God help us all.