Bob Schieffer is a smart Texan who’s been around the center of power longer than most people can remember.

The veteran CBS news anchor/reporter/commentator had it quite right this morning when he said President Obama has to stop acting like a “bystander” in his own government.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/05/16/schieffer_on_scandals_its_very_very_disturbing_what_were_seeing.html

Schieffer, who grew up in Fort Worth, has been a frequent target of conservative critics who contend he’s a member of the “liberal mainstream media” (I’m still trying to learn just who comprises the “mainstream media”). But he takes serious the criticism that has engulfed the president in recent days as controversies have erupted all around the White House.

It’s not that the Barack Obama has become the second coming of Richard Nixon, Schieffer said. It’s that the president and those closest to him are acting like there’s nobody in charge. The attorney general didn’t know precisely about the seizure of phone records at the Associated Press, the head of Internal Revenue Service didn’t know about the hassling of conservative political action groups, and the president himself didn’t know about the Benghazi tragedy as it was unfolding nearly a year ago in Libya.

I’m waiting for the president to get back into the game. He was re-elected in November despite presiding over a still-struggling economy. He wants to build a legacy he can leave behind when he exits his office in January 2017. But as Schieffer noted, he’d better “get hold” of these controversies or else nothing will get done.