The investigations and recriminations pose a double threat to a presidency already in jeopardy of irrelevance. Not only does the president suffer when he loses control of the metanarrative that determines the assumptions behind media coverage of his administration. He also suffers by looking passive, aloof, and academic. Lately the top officials of the executive branch have seemed always to be in another room, on another call. Hillary Clinton says she was not aware of cables warning of lax security in Benghazi. Eric Holder says he is not sure when he recused himself from the investigation into the AP leak, or if he told the White House, or, really, of anything. Obama says he learned about the IRS IG investigation from the news. He says the Benghazi talking points were a matter of dispute between State and CIA, not the White House. A Martian reading the statements of senior officials on subjects of public controversy would conclude that the U.S. government operates at the whims of midlevel career personnel. But why pick on Martians. Chris Matthews concludes the same thing: “The steering wheel doesn’t control the car anymore.”

The president, however, isn’t even in the car. He is a bystander, a commenter on the passing scene. He moves only when compelled by outside forces. Domestic policy was ceded to Congress during the first half of his term. Only after Scott Brown’s upset in 2010 did Obama take a lead part in passing his health care law. The threat of American default forced him into botched negotiations with John Boehner on the debt ceiling. His tax increases on the wealthy came about only because the entirety of the Bush tax rates were set to expire on Jan. 1, 2013, anyway. On foreign policy he was pulled kicking and screaming into Libya, joining the British and French in overthrowing Qaddafi only when it became clear they were prepared to go to war without him. The Syrian civil war has raged for years, 90,000 have died, as the president does what little he can to convince the Russians to abandon Assad. When natural or man-made disasters strike Americans, he acts, but not before. He is a reactive president, whom only Reinhold Niebuhr could love.