Never have we seen such a put-upon, grouchy White House. Rahm Emanuel has to deal with Obama — who doesn’t seem to understand that Rahm is smarter than everyone else. Obama is miffed at everyone from Fox to the Democrats who are interested in grubby matters, such as their own re-election. And now David Axelrod lumbers forward to spin his tale of woe. Now — I know this is shocking but he thinks it’s all a “communication problem.”

The Gray Lady hosts the grievance session:

The Obama White House has lost the narrative in the way that the Obama campaign never did,” said James Morone, a political scientist at Brown University. “They essentially took the president’s great strength as a messenger and failed to use it smartly.” Mr. Axelrod said he accepts some blame for what he called “communication failures,” though he acknowledges bafflement that the administration’s efforts to stimulate the economy in a crisis, overhaul health care and prosecute two wars have been so routinely framed by opponents as the handiwork of a big-government, soft-on-terrorism, politics-of-the-past ideologue.

Really, how in the world could the American people look at cap-and-trade, the spend-a-thon, and ObamaCare, and get the idea that Obama is interested in expanding the reach of the federal government? Dupes and fools, they must be. And as for Washington — the whole town is just insufferable:

In an interview in his office, Mr. Axelrod was often defiant, saying he did not give a “flying” expletive “about what the peanut gallery thinks” and did not live for the approval “of the political community.” He denounced the “rampant lack of responsibility” of people in Washington who refuse to solve problems, and cited the difficulty of trying to communicate through what he calls “the dirty filter” of a city suffused with the “every day is Election Day sort of mentality.”

Here’s the thing: leave if you don’t like it or can’t convince people of what a swell job you’re doing. There is no mandatory draft for the White House. In fact, some people consider it an honor and privilege to serve there. And  it dpes sound as though the excuses are mounting for an exit. “Mr. Axelrod’s friends worry about the toll of his job — citing his diet (cold-cut-enriched), his weight (20 pounds heavier than at the start of the presidential campaign), sleep deprivation (five fitful hours a night), separation from family (most back home in Chicago) and the fact that at 55, he is considerably older than many of the wunderkind workaholics of the West Wing. He wakes at 6 in his rented condominium just blocks from the White House and typically returns around 11.” Oh, my — the stress! The hours!

A friend of Axelrod confides, “I think he’s getting close to a burnout kind of thing.” Yes, failure is stressful. But whining is tiresome. If Axelrod and the rest can’t figure out how to make this all work, maybe the country would be better served by their return to the cesspool of Illinois politics. I hear Tony Rezko’s banker needs some help with his Senate campaign.