Team Obama knows that just as the Great Depression and FDR’s eloquence led to a radically new statism, so too the late 2008 meltdown and Obama’s charisma have given the Left an historic chance to enact a doctrinaire liberal agenda that otherwise polls poorly.

The key will be to rush through as much as possible before last year’s panic and Bush become ancient history — and Obama’s own soaring rhetoric becomes trite and boilerplate.

That’s why cast-off comments like Obama’s “stupidly” and his ill-informed references about tonsils become more important than they otherwise would. These chance asides mean nothing in isolation, but slowly in toto they are building a portrait of an executive at times ignorant (cf. the fill-up-your-tires mantra of last year), and occasionally mean and partisan. And because his agenda — cap and trade, nationalized health care, stimuli, higher taxes, deficit spending, apology diplomacy — is not really supported by the American people, his own popularity is critical. Lose that, and he loses the rest.

The Sotomayor and Holder comments, coupled with Gatesgate, bring up memories of the mess with Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger. The tonsils comment, the Special Olympics gaffe, the historical blunders in Cairo, etc. suggest not a hip, smart, postracial candidate, but an inexperienced, though tough-minded, tribal Chicago pol. If all that results to below 50% approval, there will be an entirely new politics. Unpopular presidents cannot enact unpopular legislation, no matter how once popular they were, no matter how much they blame their predecessors and Wall Street greed.

Obama is about one or two more gaffes away from a stampeding herd of House Democrats.