Barack Obama used to call himself a "hopemonger," mocking skeptics who thought the young presidential candidate was entirely too hopeful. No one would accuse him of that anymore. President Obama has done more than anyone else during the last two years to destroy trust in Washington. His administration is the latest in a series of blows to the credibility of the system. First, there were the Bush administration failures in Hurricane Katrina and Iraq. Then, the financial collapse. Finally, a president who got elected promising a new, bipartisan way of doing business and a pragmatic approach to governance, who has...