In a dizzying series of speeches and White House events last week, President Obama tried to raise foreign policy issues to the top of the political agenda. In part, the president's purpose was to relieve the growing sense of panic among congressional Democrats by giving them a campaign issue that doesn't require them to defend his economic policies. He didn't succeed because he didn't "turn the page" - even briefly - on the seemingly constant flow of bad economic news. But he did confuse our military and our allies about what he intends for the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

The Democrats' state of panic was made official last weekend by Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen: the first death panel will be established - not by Obamacare administrator Donald Berwick - but by Van Hollen's Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to triage Democratic candidates and decide which will be abandoned by their party. Van Hollen plans to cut off campaign funding for those who can't be saved in November.

According to a Rasmussen poll, only 29% of Americans believe that the nation is headed in the right direction. The last time Democrats faced such an angry electorate was in 1994. They had a personally-popular president then. Now, as Reid Wilson reported, one Democratic strategist called President Obama a "walking radioactive disaster."

Obama worked hard to refocus the debate from domestic crises to his foreign policy initiatives which he believes have succeeded or will in the future. In two weeks he went from riding a bicycle (wearing a grin and oversized helmet reminiscent of Michael Dukakis' tank pose in the 1988 campaign) to Rose Garden and Oval Office speeches and meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to push another round in the "peace process."

The White House envisions a one-year negotiation process leading to an agreement that is supposed to provide a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In Obama's Oval Office Iraq speech he claimed success in ending combat operations there and - despite dissenting statements by prominent military commanders - he insisted that he would stick to his July 2011 plan to begin withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Using claims of foreign policy success to gain electoral advantage isn't new. The most memorable incident occurred on the morning of the 1980 Wisconsin Democratic primary. Iranian revolutionaries had taken American diplomats hostage more than three months before, paralyzing Jimmy Carter's government.

Faced with a growing challenge from Ted Kennedy, Carter called an unusual 7:15 a.m. press conference to announce - falsely - a "positive development" in freeing the hostages. Carter defeated Kennedy in the primary by two-to-one. And nothing came of the "positive development."

Obama's political problem stems from his inability to connect domestic policy with success in the war. To be fair, the problem was created by President Bush who told Americans to go on with their daily lives, assuring us that we need not make any personal sacrifice to win the war. But Obama's problem is exacerbated by his own efforts to exclude the war from the national agenda.

Obama's August 31 Oval Office address wasn't the first time he used the "turn the page" line on the Iraq war. In a presidential primary campaign speech on August 1, 2007 Obama condemned the Iraq war as "a misguided invasion of a Muslim country that sparks new insurgencies, ties down our military, busts our budgets, increases the pool of terrorist recruits, alienates America, gives democracy a bad name, and prompts the American people to question our engagement in the world," adding, "It is time to turn the page. It is time to write a new chapter in our response to 9/11."

From the beginning of his brief Senate career, Obama's interest in the war was purely political. Since his election, because of the economic crisis he worsened, far more people believe the continuing economic crisis as a much higher priority for the White House than the war.

Without even enough Democratic votes to pass further war funding, Obama has to find public support for another year of war - and more -- in Afghanistan. He sent Gen. David Petraeus out on a publicity tour to gain that support, but Petraeus's effort went virtually unreported and failed to affect the domestic political equation. And Obama's attempt to link his economic policy to support for the troops hasn't been effective either.

Obama confused military leaders - and voters - with his Oval Office speech. Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway had said that setting the withdrawal date was giving the enemy sustenance and that the Taliban leaders would have a lot of explaining to do with their troops when we didn't leave. Gen. David Petraeus, Afghanistan commander, said repeatedly that the withdrawal would depend on conditions on the ground.

Obama recited that "conditions on the ground" as rote. He repeated his goal, saying that, "We will disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda, while preventing Afghanistan from again serving as a base for terrorists."

But Obama contradicted himself and overrode what Conway and Petraeus said, reconfirming the July 2011 withdrawal date regardless of the circumstances: "But make no mistake: this transition will begin - because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people's." He then proceeded to cite a litany of liberal spending initiatives (education, reducing oil consumption) as the way to honor returning troops.

Obama can't call on his own party to support the war, so his appeal - directly and indirectly through Gen. Petraeus - had to "turn the page" so that Americans would focus more on the war and less on the economy. In this, he has failed.

Obama, like Jimmy Carter, is shrinking in his Oval Office chair. With unemployment rising to 9.6% -- about 14.9 million people without jobs - and no noticeable progress in Afghanistan, the president is too small and too weak to exercise leadership on either front.

How do you "turn the page" when the world - and our economy - are ripping it up?