The rest of the sequester will still be administered so as to make the government as painful as possible to the public, in the hope that the public will support more spending by and for the government. Obama may think his powers of persuasion can convince people that as chief executive he is a mere bystander in this executive-branch sadism. But about those powers . . .

In 2009, he flew to Copenhagen to give a speech about himself (he referred to himself 26 times in 48 sentences), expecting this to enchant the International Olympic Committee into awarding Chicago the 2016 Games. Unenthralled, the committee eliminated Chicago first from the competition.

Since then, Obama has campaigned for Obamacare without making it popular and against Republican candidates without success in 2010. Still, his faith in the potent ointment of his words is probably unshaken by even the failure of his barnstorming in support of gun legislation almost weirdly unrelated to the event — Newtown — to which it was supposedly a response.