You really have to marvel at the fix Obama finds himself in. He’s desperate to win back independents so he makes a baby step toward fiscal sanity with a freeze on a fraction of the federal budget. Speaker Nancy Pelosi leaps into the fray before the SOTU is even delivered:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that defense spending shouldn’t be exempt from President Barack Obama’s proposal for a three-year freeze on federal spending. In his State of the Union address Wednesday night, Obama is expected to address worries about the federal deficit by proposing a three-year freeze on all “non-security” spending. But just hours before the speech, Pelosi told POLITICO that any spending freeze should be “across the board.”

Well, that’s crazy talk, given that we are at war and face ongoing terrorist attacks. But it’s a measure of just how acrimonious the environment has become — on the Democratic side of the aisle. This is what happens when the president shrinks before our eyes. His own party is up in arms, the opposition smells blood and the perception is that he is no longer in control of events. Maybe he can reverse that. But he sure dug himself a deep hole.