You don't have to be an old Washington hand to spot the telltale signs of a presidency and an administration in serious trouble. There's nothing new about these clues. The inability to get their stories straight--that's a hardy perennial of high-level officials caught in the vise of political embarrassment. A president who skips town to avoid the White House press corps and speak directly to the American people--we've sure seen that before. So in a sense the AIG mess has touched off nothing more than business as usual.

What goes on in Washington usually comes across as background noise to the public, but not this time. Bonuses for AIG executives are like the infamous Bridge to Nowhere--an issue that's broken through outside Washington. And we know it's become a major political problem for the president because he and his administration act as if it has. Here are five signs of this:

1. His allies are moving to protect the president. In a political emergency, this is the highest obligation of everyone in the administration. The president must be distanced as far as possible from decisions that led to the problem, even if he is made to look out-of-touch or actually incompetent.

In the AIG case, Obama is like a cuckolded spouse, portrayed by administration officials as the last person to learn about the bonuses, though he signed the economic stimulus legislation with a provision assuring they'd be paid. A front-page account in the Washington Post played along, absolving the entire administration of blame. Attributed

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said he didn't tell the White House until March 12, two days after he learned of bonuses totaling $165 million and the day before the checks went out. What could Obama do? He was "stunned," the president told Jay Leno last week. Obama said he takes full responsibility for the mess. Then he went on to blame others.

2. The president gets out of town. In the final stages of the Watergate scandal in 1974, President Nixon flew to Cairo, where he was greeted by one million Egyptians along the route of his motorcade. This prompted a question: Can a million Egyptians be wrong? The answer turned out to be yes. Nixon resigned a few weeks later.

Okay, the AIG flap isn't Watergate. But last week was a good time for Obama to skip town, mingle with worshipful fans, and dodge the (suddenly) unfriendly Washington media mob. The idea is to get through to the American people directly, without the press's filtering his every word. So in California, he spoke to a town hall meeting, the preferred venue of presidents under political stress. He was interviewed by a sympathizer on talk radio, then by Jay Leno, who invariably makes his guests look good, then went to a research center for electric cars. He put off a White House press conference until the following week, when the AIG frenzy may have eased.