The World Series starts tonight so a little baseball analogy is in order. 

President Obama reminds me of the fellow who keeps letting "fat pitches" go by and misses opportunity after opportunity to get back in the game. He won't swing at the fat pitches and takes a 3rd strike to kill the rally!  He is not Mr October, as they used to call Reggie Jackson!

It started with the ObamaCare website and the problems related to that.  

What did he do?  Did he address the nation, show outrage and dismiss everyone in the website team?  Did he tell the country that he was responsible for hiring the wrong people?  Did he tell us that we deserved better after spending a billion dollars on a website that wasn't constructed correctly?

Next, he missed the ball with ISIS, even calling them a "JV team" at one point.  After that, and when ISIS got within miles of the Baghdad Airport, he blamed the intelligence community. Did he accept responsibility and admit mistakes, especially not leaving a force in Iraq?

Finally, we continue to hear that the Ebola crisis is another "messaging" problem. Of course, it's a lot more than that, as Scott Gotlieb and Tevi Troy indicated today:

"The broad, early assurances from Mr. Obama prove that the best political messages don’t make for good public health.

The public won’t be spooked by an admission that we don’t have all the answers, as long as people sense that they are being spoken to honestly and believe that officials are pursuing key uncertainties.   

The good news is that the CDC is learning from early missteps and adapting its strategy.

As for Mr. Klain, we hope he gives the president better briefings than he apparently gave Joe Biden."

Once again, this is a president who misses opportunities to lead and be great. 

For example, he could have appointed Dr Ben Carson as Ebola Czar.   He is a respected medical expert, a man of integrity and would have sent a signal that Ebola is about health not politics. Instead, he hired the aforementioned Mr Klain,

The presidency is always about "stuff that happens." The great ones seize the opportunity and do great things. The bad ones take "strike 3" and get booed by the fans.

Mr Obama is starting to look more and more like the latter.

P. S. You can hear CANTO TALK here & follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.