Has Obama lost his 'golden touch'?

Barack Obama has piled up an impressive stack of political accomplishments over the past two years — defeating Hillary Clinton to take the Democratic presidential nomination, crushing John McCain in the presidential election, and winning bruising battles in Congress over the economic stimulus, health care, and financial reform. But the Obama administration has made a series of missteps recently — including controversial efforts to coax candidates Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff to drop out of potentially divisive Democratic Senate primaries — that has Politico asking whether Obama has lost his "golden touch." Well, has he? (Watch a Fox report about Obama's latest appointees' difficulties)

Yes, Obama's incompetence is shining through: Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has essentially admitted that the White House offered Andrew Romanoff a job to end his campaign, says Ed Morrissey in Hot Air. This scandal, coming on the heels of the Sestak case, makes it impossible for the lapdogs in the mainstream media to continue ignoring "the growing sense that this administration is incompetent."

"Gibbs on Romanoff: Yeah, we were trying to avoid a primary challenge with job offer"

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These phony scandals don't mean a thing: Sure, the White House talked to Andrew Romanoff about a job — because he applied for one, says Steve Benen in Washington Monthly. "There. Is. No. Scandal." But that isn't stopping Republicans from manufacturing "a controversy where none exists." Obama's fine. It's the GOP that should be embarrassed.

"Another manufactured controversy ends in a whimper"

Scandal or no, this hurts Obama: Nobody in the White House committed a crime, says Michael McGough in the Los Angeles Times. The fact that there are two such cases doesn't change the legal math, so the GOP can stop dreaming that someone will face prosecution. "Two times zero is still zero. Of course, the political equation could be different" — even lame scandals can taint the image of a president who promised to clean up Washington.

"'Have I got a job for you?' — the sequel"