James Carville has some advice for President Obama that can be summed up in one word: panic. The former Clinton adviser does offer some more specific suggestions, the first sounding the most promising.

1. Fire somebody. No — fire a lot of people. This may be news to you but this is not going well. For precedent, see Russian Army 64th division at Stalingrad. There were enough deaths at Stalingrad to make the entire tea party collectively orgasm.

Bill Clinton fired many people in 1994 and took a lot of heat for it. Reagan fired most of his campaign staff in 1980. Republicans historically fired their own speaker, Newt Gingrich. Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. For God’s sake, why are we still looking at the same political and economic advisers that got us into this mess? It’s not working.

The whole item is worth a read to get a sense of how Democratic strategists are feeling after this week’s special election losses. Obama’s numbers have tanked to the point that Carville worries “creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans” can beat him. Carville has given the president advice before, sending a letter earlier this year.

 The New York Times‘ Matt Bai isn’t sold, however.