As a candidate, Barack Obama vowed to bring a different, better kind of leadership to the dysfunctional capital. He'd make government more efficient, accountable and transparent. He'd rise above the "small-ball" nature of doing business. And he'd work with Republicans to break Washington paralysis. You can trust me, Obama said back in 2008. And – for a while, at least – a good piece of the country did. But with big promises often come big failures – and the potential for big hits to the one thing that can make or break a presidency: credibility. A series of mounting controversies is exposing both the risks of political promise-making and the limits of national-level governing while undercutting the core assurance Obama made from the outset: that he and his administration would behave differently. – AP

Dominant Social Theme: This great man is under attack but he will survive.

Free-Market Analysis: There are many theories about why Richard Nixon was impeached and removed from office but the most sensible one we've heard is that his topmost backers grew angry with his tariffs and generally protectionist attitude regarding US business.

Soon, Nixon was deposed and the genial idiot Gerald Ford replaced him. Later on, the vacuous Jimmy Carter came into power. It was hailed as a political miracle but the chances are it was not. It was more … deliberate than that.

For us, Barack Obama's presidency, too, seems like a kind of "arranged" affair, and looking at the steady rain of scandals now pelting Barack Obama, we wonder if various powerful interest groups associated with his rise to power have decided he no longer serves their interests.

Such speculation is hard to turn into solid evidence but this AP story on Obama's scandals certainly encourages such thinking. It states in no uncertain terms that if Obama cannot surmount what he and his administration are accused of on various fronts, he may end up not being "trusted" by a majority of the American people.

The AP, like Reuters, is evidently and obviously a globalist mouthpiece. Attacks from the AP, however decorous, increase our sense of suspicion that something is going on here beyond "business as usual."

There is plenty of evidence that Obama is not a native-born US citizen. But the mainstream media has kept the story at bay simply by not reporting on it accurately or regularly.

Yet these scandals raining down on Obama day after day are being reported widely. Now AP, too. Here's more:

The latest: the government's acknowledgement that, in a holdover from the Bush administration and with a bipartisan Congress' approval and a secret court's authorization, it was siphoning the phone records of millions of American citizens in a massive data-collection effort officials say was meant to protect the nation from terrorism. This came after the disclosure that the government was snooping on journalists.

Also, the IRS' improper targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status has spiraled into a wholesale examination of the agency, including the finding that it spent $49 million in taxpayer money on 225 employee conferences over the past three years.

At the same time, Obama's immigration reform agenda is hardly a sure thing on Capitol Hill, and debate starting this week on the Senate floor is certain to show deep divisions over it. Gun control legislation is all but dead. And he's barely speaking to Republicans who control the House, much less working with them on a top priority: tax reform.

Even Democrats are warning that more angst may be ahead as the government steps up its efforts to implement Obama's extraordinarily expensive, deeply unpopular health care law.

Collectively, the issues call into question not only whether the nation's government can be trusted but also whether the leadership itself can. All of this has Obama on the verge of losing the already waning faith of the American people. And without their confidence, it's really difficult for presidents to get anything done – particularly those in the second term of a presidency and inching toward lame-duck status.

… Obama seemed to recognize this last week. He emphasized to anxious Americans that the other two branches of government were as responsible as the White House for signing off on the vast data-gathering program.

"We've got congressional oversight and judicial oversight," Obama said. "And if people can't trust not only the executive branch but also don't trust Congress and don't trust federal judges to make sure that we're abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we're going to have some problems here."

… A Quinnipiac University poll conducted late last month found 49 percent of people consider Obama honest and trustworthy, a dip from the organization's last read on the matter in September 2011 when 58 percent said the same. He also has taken a hit among independents, which used to be a source of strength for him, since his second-term controversies have emerged. Now just 40 percent say he is honest and trustworthy, down from 58 percent in September 2011.

Obama has waning opportunities to turn it around. He's halfway through his fifth year, and with midterm elections next fall, there's no time to waste.

If he can't convince the American people that they can trust him, he could end up damaging the legacy he has worked so hard to control and shape – and be remembered, even by those who once supported him, as the very opposite of the different type of leader he promised to be.

Obama states that if US citizens have lost faith in the system then "we're going to have some problems here."

It is unclear at this point whether US citizens in aggregate have lost faith in the system or if Obama's backers have lost faith in HIM. It is also unclear as to why this should be so. Possibly, Obama has not proven to be an effective enough promoter of the globalist agenda. Perhaps he is too remote … too technocratic.

It is difficult to tell what it going on in the high-reaches of US power politics, or if there is anything resembling some sort of campaign. But Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said that in modern politics nothing ever happens by accident, and that sounds credible to us.

If so, Obama's troubles may be a lot bigger than just a series of seemingly disconnected "scandals."