In one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek, Captain Kirk is mistaken for a god by inhabitants of a planet of Native Americans (it’s a long story). The illusion works for Kirk until a jealous shaman cuts Kirk’s hand, revealing that the divine being is just a man after all. “Behold! A god who bleeds!” the shaman mocks, exposing Kirk as a fraud to the rest of the tribe.

It may sound like a stretch — and, let’s be fair, it is — but I keep thinking of that episode when I look Barack Obama’s poll numbers these days.

He’s bleeding on every front. The latest Pew survey shows that only 38 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, fewer than half of respondents (48 percent) say Obama can be trusted to keep his word. Gallup has his approval rating at a new low of 52 percent, and Rasmussen has it below 50 percent for the first time.

On almost every domestic issue, polls show that support for Obama and his agenda is plummeting, and that the Democratic party’s advantages over Republicans on the economy, taxes, the deficit, and health care have been erased or severely reduced.