What's eating Obama?

It depends on whom you ask...this morning's newspapers seem full of folks predicting which of the many crises facing the President are going to take him down. "The banks still threaten to consume the Obama presidency", writes Thomas Friedman . Maureen Dowd points instead to the pork-filled budget: "he did not ask Congress to sacrifice and make hard choices". Then there's Newsweek magazine, which on its January 31st cover asked in HUGE typeface if Afghanistan will be "Obama's Vietnam". Bob Herbert echoes that thought this morning, suggesting President Obama "might benefit from a look over his shoulder at the link between Vietnam and the still-smoldering ruins of Johnson’s presidency". And those columnists are just in this morning's N.Y. Times! [Google "Obama's Vietnam" to see how popular that phrase has become!]

Makes you wonder if GW had it right when he didn't read newspapers. One the other hand, the way that business is falling off the cliff (some would say driving off it), Mr. Obama may not have them to not read for long.

[UPDATE: listen to an interview with the author of "The Gamble", Thomas Ricks, on NPR's Morning Edition, in which he says about IRAQ (NOT Afghanastan!): "It's not going to be a democracy, it's going to have a surprising level of violence, it's probably going to be an ally of Iran and it's probably going to be ruled by some sort of dictator, some sort of little Saddam."]