'SNL' Skit No Laughing Matter

Call it the Fred Armisen effect.

I don't think he does a very good Obama impersonation; a flat affect seems to be the only comedic arrow in his quiver. But "Saturday Night Live" is a good cultural bellwether.

So when President Armisen does a zip-zero-nada checklist about how he's accomplished nothing, it means some New York comedy writers, at least, think that's the new Zeitgeist.

Now, this wasn't quite the late-night earthquake of Tina Fey saying she can see Russia from her house. But this seems to be the week that the pundits, even on the left, have lost patience with the president.

Coincidence? Maybe. Unfair after nine months? Could be. But to paraphrase the famous line about LBJ and Cronkite, if Obama has lost "SNL". . . .

One factor in Obama's favor -- but dwindling by the day -- is that he inherited most of his major problems. Unemployment may be at 9.8 percent, but Obama took office months after a banking and housing meltdown. We're not out of Iraq, but it was George Bush's war of choice, and Obama always said the withdrawal would be complete by next year. Afghanistan is getting worse, but the first seven years of the war that reached the eight-year mark this week were handled by the Bush administration.

On the other hand, Obama owns the health-care mess right now.

And then there are the promises he hasn't gotten around to -- immigration reform, gays in the military -- and the ones that are stalled, such as climate change. Not to mention the Olympics, which fed the symbolism of an ineffective president.

In sporting terms, Obama needs to put some points on the board or hear more jibes about the audacity of nope. (I can hear him blaming the 24-hour news cycle, but that cycle is where politics lives.)

But one leading indicator is that liberal media types are clearly frustrated.

In the NYT, Bob Herbert writes under the headline "Does Obama Get It?":

"The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging. . . .