But it’s unlikely that Democrats are prepared to go that far. As one White House official noted, Bush had already won re-election when he admitted that 2006 had been a sweeping defeat. So Obama is unlikely to go before the American people on Wednesday and do the political version of Jimmy Swaggart’s “I have sinned” confession…

A Democratic source close to the White House said the staff reaction may at first be something closer to where Karl Rove was after 2006 – tallying up the GOP’s narrow loss margins in individual races to make the case they were oh-so-close – than where Bush himself was.

“They’re not going to want to acknowledge that they [screwed] it up,” said this Democrat of Obama’s high command. “So it depends on what the president decides. He’s shown a willingness [after past crises] to take responsibility and throw somebody under the bus.”