President Obama achieved a milestone you probably didn't notice. For the first time in his turbulent presidency, he made it through the month of August without a major calamity.
August 2009 was the month of the town hall forums against his proposed health-care reform. Some of them turned ugly, real ugly. And Sarah Palin's conspiratorial warning of "death panels"didn't help matters. It was a lie that PolitiFact dubbed "the lie of the year" in 2009. But the damage it caused forced the president to address a joint session of Congress to save his reform effort. Obama's singular focus on getting a health-care law passed would prove successful. He just had to endure a "You lie!" moment to get there.
August 2010 was relatively light on calamity. But the hangover from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was still being felt by Obama, whose stewardship of the crisis was found wanting. On April 20, the Deepwater Horizon facility exploded and for the next three months, oil would flow into the Gulf unabated, and the well was not sealed until Sept. 19. Meanwhile, Obama's anemic poll numbers made him persona non grata among Democrats campaigning in mid-term elections.
August 2011 was all about the debt-ceiling craziness. Obama signed legislation Aug. 2 to raise the U.S. debt ceiling above $14.3 trillion to avoid a first-ever default. But questions about the full faith and credit of the United States led Standard & Poor's to issue the first-ever downgrade of the nation's AAA bond rating on Aug. 5. And, Obama was being hammered for the lack of jobs. His American Jobs Act, unveiled Sept. 8, failed ultimately to pass. All part of a GOP plan to ensure Obama's failure.
The relative quiet of August 2012 hit me on the 23rd. I thought about writing something then but didn't out of fear of being a jinx. Well, Obama's August Angst has been broken. Sure, Hurricane Isaac tore apart areas in Louisiana and other areas of the Gulf Coast. Yet the fears that the storm would be another disaster akin to August 2005's Hurricane Katrina were not borne out. Thank goodness.
We'll find out in 64 days if the no-drama August omen was indeed a good one.
Capehart writes for The Washington Post.