What to call the contagion: buyer's remorse? or Messiah fatigue?

President Obama is angry at God for making it rain in Chicago, and irked at the oil spill, making him pack up between his vacations and make trips down again to the Gulf. Ideologues argue about over whether corporations or government tend to be the least competent, ignoring the proof that the answer is both of them. And Democrats are having their own kind of crisis, a sort of buyer's remorse at a very high level, which sounds like Messiah Fatigue.

Messiah Fatigue is what happens when your Messiah turns into a millstone, and the force that was supposed to boost you into divine and deep power seems more of an anchor instead. Democrats are bewildered.

"They are doing a lot of things, but a lot of people do not like what they are doing. Others do not know what they are doing. And hardly anyone likes the way they are doing it," as the Los Angeles Times now says of the party.

"A lot of our people have no idea what we're doing," it quotes a House member. And David Obey complains that "Obama's ability to use his bully pulpit to build support for health care and other crises had been eclipsed by the oil spill crisis," causing James Taranto to note unkindly that, as the health care vote came a month before the crisis erupted, "the explosion created a disruption in the space-time continuum that is causing millions of gallons of oil to leak into the past."

Apparently they washed back as far as November, when they eclipsed his ability to elect Creigh Deeds and Jon Corzine as governors, not to mention eclipsing his power (in January) to stymie the fast-moving surge of Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass. He has been magic, but for the Republican Party, which now has a slew of attractive officeholders in purple and blue states, and looks to pick up a lot more this November.

"Obama's mixed [she means losing] electoral record has perplexed operatives who thought his charisma and tactical skill would yield a stronger-than-ever Democratic majority," reported Anne Kornblut. Instead, it produced a revival among the Republicans, who just a few months ago appeared moribund.

How did this happen, if he was the Anointed? Inquiring minds want to know. Inquiring minds have a few other questions, in light of the gap between promise and fact.

How did he turn health care into a wedge issue against his own party? Why are we awash in a sea of dead pelicans? Why has he so much time on his hands for fundraisers and galas? Why are our relations so much worse with all of our allies, while our -- and their -- enemies go on building bombs?

Based on these facts, Obama seems nobody's highway to heaven. He's the sleek, splashy sports car that sits in the driveway, that looked so cool in the showroom, and handled so well on the test drive, but has a bad habit of stalling in traffic, and just doesn't take to the road.