From his Syria gyrations to Monday’s ill-timed economic speech attacking Republicans as a mass shooting was in progress at the nearby Washington Navy Yard, Obama’s apparently willful dismissal of style could do more than just hurt his poll numbers. It could yield midterm election losses and create perhaps insurmountable obstacles to achieving his policy goals.

The Syria moves were head-spinning, from beginning (Obama’s stunning decision to ask Congress to authorize a military strike) to end (Russia convening negotiations on Syria’s chemical weapons). What with Congress poised to reject Obama’s request and Vladimir Putin’s twin tours de force – coming up with a viable diplomatic path and landing an annoying op-ed in The New York Times – the commander in chief has appeared to be in a less than commanding position.

Ronald Reagan biographer Lou Cannon calls Obama’s performance on Syria “appalling.” Presidential historian Robert Dallek says he’s coming across as “indecisive, almost Hamlet-like.” Among the descriptions tweeted by Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, were unsteady, undisciplined, poorly executed, and “serial U.S. ineptitude.”…

“At some point people make a collective decision and they don’t listen to the president anymore. That’s what happened to both Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush,” Cannon says. “I don’t think Obama has quite gone off the diving board yet in the way that Carter or Bush did … but he’s close to the edge. He needs to have some successes and perceptions of success.”