Dick Morris assesses the week giving Obama too many points.

WHAT MOTIVATES OBAMA: LEFTIST TURNOUT By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN=
Why is Obama vilifying FOX News? Why does Harry Reid push an immigration bill he knows can't pass? Why won't Schumer compromise on regulatory reform and why does he try to hang Goldman Sachs around the GOP? Why did Bill Clinton blame conservatives who oppose big government for the Oklahoma City bombing? ****This one depends on bad memory: Tim McVeigh was motivated by the Waco fiasco, due to Clinton and Janet Reno. Slick Willy should keep his mouth shut just as Chris Matthews should shut up about Ted Kennedy and conveniently forget all about Chappaquiddick. These guys think they can lie a week after something happens because everyone has Alzheimer's, in their view.**** All share one motivation: To increase their base's turnout in the off year elections of 2010. Going after FOX News stimulates a feeling of victimization on the left. The immigration bill and the new Arizona law catalyzes a Latino turnout. Goldman Sachs enrages liberal anti-Wall Street populists. By characterizing the Tea Party activists as dangerous, liberals are aroused to vote in November.
There are two way to win any election: energize the base or appeal to the center. Obama is, predictably, choosing the former, deliberately pushing policies that drive Independents into Republican arms as the price for generating passion on the part of his supporters.
Turnout in presidential year elections averages about 20 points higher than in off-year legislative races. Normally, the decrease in turnout is primarily among the least educated voters -- African-Americans and Latino-Americans -- and among young voters. These groups are, of course, precisely those that rallied to back Obama and put him over the top in 2008. A falloff in their turnout would be fatal to Obama's hopes of continuing Democratic control of Congress.
So Obama is doing all he can to generate a turnout, even going to the lengths of fostering racial tensions over immigration to energize his base.
Ultimately, the two events of this past week -- the oil spill and the Times Square terror attack -- will work in opposite political directions. While Obama may lose the day to day effort to convince us that he acted in a timely way to contain the spill, the more damage the oil does, the more environmentalists will be activated and fears of off shore drilling will be stoked. Advantage: Obama.****I'm not sure I buy this. The Obama administration was very late in getting engaged on this ( a 2004 study questioned whether the safety systems were adequate; BP got a waiver from some regs in April 2010; the Nap/Salazar bleatins about "...Day One" were laughable ( see Youtube) and pointed up the fact that they were nowhere near engaged Day One. There was a government-approved plan to deploy ships and get any oil slick "fire-boomed" and burned ( volatilizing the lighter components and letting the heavier ones drop to the sea bottom ) and there were no ships deployed nor were there any "fire-booms" available. Napolitano is a total joke involving anything concerned with her job title and she even looks vacuous as she spouts nonsense. She can't be doing Obama any good whenever she appears in public.****
And the reverse is true of the Times Square attack. While Attorney General Eric Holder and the Homeland Security folks may win the day to day coverage of how they located and arrested the terror suspect, pulling him off a plane on the runway at JFK, the entire episode will raise fears of terrorism. ****this is even worse than Morris is saying. The whole episode smacks of the Keystone Cops. State allowed this guy to get citizenship when there was fraudulent marriage to an American involved, they abandoned the special vetting of people coming from 14 Muslim countries, the FBI lost him from surveillance after the NYPD had id'd who he was and didn't catch up with him until he was sitting on the plane at JFK ( where Emirate Airlines had allowed him to board despite his having been added to the "no-fly" list.) Luck upon luck is the only way tragedy was averted and this guy apprehended and then Holder reads him Miranda rights. *****Voters will ask why we have had three attempted attacks on US soil since Obama took office (Ft. Hood, Detroit airplane, and Times Square) while we had none in the seven years of Bush after 9/11. Advantage: Republicans.
The more either story has legs, the more the spill spreads and the more terror fears escalate, the more the respective political parties will benefit.****The bogus immigration issue ( why do we need COMPREHENSIVE immigration reform to seal the borders? )is the only one that will resonate because it uses lies and appeals to base instincts. ****