By: Jeffrey Klein
Examiner.com

If you felt a profound sense of public perception break-through from the results of the New York Times/CBS poll that came out a week ago–revealing President Obama’s approval rating had fallen to the … ‘lowest point ever recorded’ in this history of this poll,’–then the revelations from the lead Washington Post article yesterday will hit the ball out of the park for you.

The 4,600 word article, written by Peter Wallsten, Lori Montgomery and Scott Wilson, is a chronicle of the tense national debt-ceiling increase negotiations that occurred in the last part of July 2011.

These negotiations, critical to the financial efficacy of the nation, are considered by many political analysts to be the first, seminal test of Barack Obama’s central campaign theme of ushering in a new, non-partisan way of doing business in Washington–especially after Democrat’s November shellacking by the Tea Party candidates caused them to lose control of the House, and usher in a starkly divided government.

Not surprisingly several prominent journalists are tackling these events as well, including New York Times Magazine’s Matt Bai, who is working on a similar piece, and Bob Woodward, who is writing a book on Obama’s handling of the economy, according to Jake Sherman’s article in Politico yesterday.

This promises to keep sustained attention on a critical moment of Obama’s first term, which will definitely play into his reelection prospects.

These three journalist’s constructed the article from interviews with most of the central players in those talks — some of whom were granted anonymity to speak about the secret negotiations — as well as a review of meeting notes, e-mails and the negotiating proposals that changed hands, offer a more complicated picture of the collapse, according to an account in Patrick Brennan’s article in the National Review this afternoon.

From my perspective, the most revealing outcome from this article, is that the trio who wrote the article in the Liberal-leaning Washington Post, Sherman, from Democrat-leaning Politico, and Brennan from Republican-leaning National Review, all eventually came to the same conclusion, Barack Obama failed the test–giving “adult-in-the-room” honors to Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

Without sarcasms, and keeping to the recreation of events from the source material described above, the article clearly characterized Obama as a lone wolf, lacking in leadership gravitas and chief executive officer skills–driven only by his campaign reelection instincts–in near disregard for Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

Quite simply, after tough negotiations conducted by leaders had with each of their sides of the aisle, in both Houses of Congress, and amazingly reaching a substantially complete “Grand Bargain,” all parties marched to the White House believing Obama would bless it so the country could move forward with the speed necessary to avoid a last minute government shut-down.

Instead, in the very simplest of terms, they all met in the White House, late on a Sunday afternoon in typical Obama-dictated “eleventh-hour fashion.” Then, without regard, President Obama pompously, and single-handedly, negated several key deal points–strictly in favor to his base–in a “take it or leave it” tone.

Consequently, after scuttling the deal, which had no presidential “sweat equity” whatsoever, Speaker Boehner left the White House.

Obama had flippantly demanded that Republicans raise tax revenue increases finally offered by Boehner, which had not even been on the table earlier, from $800 Billion to $1.2 Trillion; he reneged on no tax increases for wealthier, job creating Americans; and he back-peddled on cuts to entitlement programs–which are at the core of the deficit problem.

Sherman’s article stated that it painted the Obama administration as walking away from a nearly done agreement with Boehner. And when the president eventually came around and wanted to cut a deal, Boehner said it was too late.

In short, the Post piece bolsters the Boehner team’s narrative that it was Obama who got cold feet and became unwilling to strike a grand bargain to fix the nation’s finances.

“The story makes it clear that the facts are as we’ve always described them,” said Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman, in a Sunday interview. “The speaker showed a great deal of courage by putting $800 billion in revenues through tax reform on the table, and the White House couldn’t close the deal. They moved the goal posts and refused to get serious.”

Former Obama chief of staff Bill Daley provided surprising, on-the-record support of the GOP’s insistence that the president deserves blame for losing his nerve.

These events were the subject of my first two articles for the Examiner, where, as a result of my analysis at that time, I proclaimed President Barack Obama to be the “Obstacle-in-Chief,” in the debt ceiling negotiation process.

Now, I am pleased we have bi-partisan journalistic support, which indicates what we have all known to be true since January 2009–Barack Obama must be a one term president–because our country, and the rest of the world, can no longer afford his “on the job training.”