Readers are advised to have smelling salts handy and to take all necessary medical precautions before proceeding further as this headline recently featured at the Washington Post could result in unexpected health complications.

"Is Obama Overrated As a Candidate?"

So amazingly asked the Post's Chris Cillizza Sunday evening as a result of the President's horrible performance in last Wednesday's debate.

"Four years ago, that question would have been unimaginable," Cillizza observed. "After all, this was a man who in his first run for national office not only outmaneuvered the Clinton family to win the Democratic presidential nomination but also went on to claim a 365-electoral-vote general-election landslide against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). And, oh by the way, Obama did all that while raising $750 million (including $500 million online) — a sum that shattered all fundraising records."

Cillizza noted that despite his fine debates with McCain, Obama "was far from the champion performer that many expected."

But four years later, "you see Obama’s flaws as a candidate in starker relief."

Cillizza cited as examples the President's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention saying it "was flat and, rhetorically, felt like a patchwork effort — five or six different speeches all clumped into a single address."

Last week's debate performance in Cillizza's view "was glum and defensive, leaving anyone who watched with the overwhelming sense that the president would have rather been anywhere but sharing the stage with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R)."

Cillizza concluded, "Obama is the single most talented big-speech giver (the convention speech notwithstanding) and fundraiser currently operating in politics — and it’s not close. But, like all candidates, he has weaknesses, too. And that makes his I-am-not-a-perfect-president line from last week’s debate more true than most people — maybe up to and including Obama himself — realize."

Actually, I would say that Romney taking his first lead in the Real Clear Politics poll average is an indication that many people ARE beginning to realize this:

As Ed Morrissey noted about Cillizza's piece, "There’s no mistaking the shift in narrative, however, and it’s not just the media wondering whether Obama’s overrated as a candidate. It’s also going to extend to whether Obama has been overrated as a President — and why the media has worked so hard in overrating him as both."

Indeed.