In last night’s Special Report w/ Bret Baier, Charles Krauthammer said this:

What was hoped was that there would be a new team, new people, fresh ideas, who have a year, ’08, in which to study and learn what went wrong and would have a plan in place. It is what Obama had said he had, they knew what to do and would do it. It looks as if they have no idea what to do, and they won’t. When Obama had his first press conference, he promised it would be a detailed plan by Geithner the next morning. There was none. The market tanked. It looks as if this administration is entirely at sea on what to do on the principle element of our collapse, the banks, and they may not have any idea is what is scaring the markets. If they don’t, we are all at sea.

And this:

The Obama administration has made [health care] a central issue. You heard about it in his address to the joint session of congress, prominent in the budget. He’s going to have a healthcare summit at the White House on Thursday. What’s odd to me is that the economic system, the economy of the country, and the financial sector is essentially on fire. And what he is doing, and he did this in his speech he made, is to pretend that the reason for our economic difficulties today is deficiencies in health, education, and energy over the years and neglect of those, and that he is going to cure our problem by nationalizing health care, cap and trade on energy, and by federalizing education. This is a complete non-sequitur. You may want to do energy education and health, but this is not the cause of our problem. It isn’t the cure of our problem. And the fact that he is putting all this energy on this and doing nothing on financials is scaring the markets.

That is quite right. The banking and credit crisis generally, and toxic assets in particular, are what is pulling our economy and the markets down, as if it is caught in a whirlpool. Yet on this central issue, President Obama and Secretary Geithner — after having promised us a plan weeks ago — have produced no solution. They appear to be at a loss as to what to do, even though they have had four months (since election day) to prepare for what needs to be done. Right now they look to be unbelievably ambitious in their desire to tax and spend and remake the American economy, yet over-matched by events on the single most important matter facing us.

We are in a dangerous economic slide; the administration, rather than arresting it, is, by its actions and non-actions, accelerating it.

These are unsettling days. And one can start to feel the country’s perception of Obama beginning to shift, day-by-day, a few degrees at a time. Hope and joy are being replaced by fear and uncertainty. The nation certainly hasn’t turned on Obama, who after all has been in office just over a month. But seeds of doubt are being planted, sooner than anyone could have imagined.