Newspaper and magazine headlines, both from the United States and overseas, highlight and reflect a growing lack of confidence in American presidential leadership.

A headline from the Financial Times reads, "The Obama Presidency Is Not Over, but It Is Failing" (Nov. 17, 2013). The title of an Ezra Klein article in Bloomberg Businessweek laments, "How the iPod President Crashed: Obama's Broken Technology Promise" (Oct. 31). A London Times headline adds, "Weak Obama Won't Stop Iran Going Nuclear" (Nov. 19). A Wall Street Journal piece is titled, "Latest Troubles Imperil Obama's Pull With [the Democratic] Party" (Nov. 17). Other Journal headlines include "Europe Loses Trust in Obama" (Nov. 11), "Obama's Credibility Is Melting" (Oct. 23) and "The Unbearable Lightness of Obama" (Oct. 28).

The point in relating this is not to kick a man while he's down, especially one who's a national leader. Rather we should be praying for our nations and our nations' leaders. The apostle Paul tells us, "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we [Christians] may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence" (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

One of the principal problems at issue is the massive governmental health-care program being imposed on the nation (the troubled website designed to help implement it being only the tip of the iceberg). Remember that America's primary economic legacy has always been dominated by a strong national belief in capitalism and the free market. So when a socialist program of such massive scale is suddenly grafted into the U.S. economic picture, serious difficulties are certain to loom large.

This dilemma is not helped by the vast debt burden the nation currently finds itself under. (Sources: The Times [London], Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes.)