Barack Obama’s “malaise moment” occurred in the afternoon of Aug. 28, when, dressed for failure in tan, he announced he did not have a strategy for combating the threat posed to us by ISIS and crossed into Carterland, the Desert of Fail feared by all politicians, in which the once fresh new face becomes for all time an object of ridicule, and each attempt made at controlling the damage only makes matters much worse.

Jimmy Carter, wrote Examiner columnist Michael Barone in his book Our Country, “failed to understand that voters yearning for control to be exerted over events would be appalled by the spectacle of a president canceling a major speech, isolating himself from public view, and declining all public comment while he met with … private citizens … for ‘leisurely conversations about our nation, my administration, and the serious problems we faced.’ ” But “leisurely converse” is not in demand when the world is on fire. Who knew?