Yet that's what happened Tuesday when CNN published a piece prominently displayed on the front page of its website with the surprising headline:
Critics Say Obama's Message Becoming 'Incoherent'
For the remaining fans of our 44th President, the article that followed wasn't any better:
President Obama's comments on a plan to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero are not only giving opponents an opportunity to attack him but also reveal a messaging problem from the White House, a communications expert said.
"The danger here is an incoherent presidency," said David Morey, vice chairman of the Core Strategy Group, who provided communications advice to Obama's 2008 campaign. "Simpler is better, and rising above these issues and leading by controlling the dialogue is what the presidency is all about. So I think that's the job they have to do more effectively as they have in the past [in the campaign]." [...]
"There is no question they are having messaging problems at the White House," Morey said. "They've lost control of the dialogue, and they've gotten pulled down by the extremes on the left and right. They've just not had a coherent set of themes."
Shhh. Wait. It gets better:
"Communicating as a law professor does not work as president. It's not worked," he said. "You're drawing fine distinctions and speaking in long enough paragraphs that they can be misconstrued and taken out of context and frankly, handed to your opposition to exploit. And that's clearly what's going on here [with the Islamic center/mosque comments]."
While many poked fun at former President George W. Bush for mispronouncing words and stumbling through sentences, observers note that he rarely had to backtrack on his answers because he employed a simple and direct messaging approach.
Maybe even more surprising, author Ed Hornick provided poll numbers to demonstrate just how far Obama's message is from the public's view of this mosque:
Nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose the mosque plan, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released last week. In terms of party affiliation, 54 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents oppose the plan.
Amazed?
Well, there's even more, for this piece wasn't buried in the bowels of CNN.com.
Hardly, this was prominently featured on the front page:
I guess it's safe to say that regardless what the sycophants on the far-left and at MSNBC are claiming about this matter - or shills like Time's Joe Klein! - Obama really has jumped the shark by wading into this issue.
