A Turning Tide? (Legs and toast to follow?)

[bijou]

A Turning Tide?
Obama still has the approval of the people, but the establishment is beginning to mumble that the president may not have what it takes.


Surfer that he is, President Obama should know a riptide when he's in one. The center usually is the safest, most productive place in politics, but perhaps not now, not in a once-in-a-century economic crisis.

Swimming in the middle, he's denounced as a socialist by conservatives, criticized as a polite accommodationist by government-is-the-answer liberals, and increasingly, dismissed as being in over his head by technocrats.

Luckily for Obama, the public still likes and trusts him, at least judging by the latest polls, including NEWSWEEK's.But, in ways both large and small, what's left of the American establishment is taking his measure and, with surprising swiftness, they are finding him lacking.

They have some reasons to be concerned. I trace them to a central trait of the president's character: he's not really an in-your-face guy. By recent standards—and that includes Bill Clinton as well as George Bush—Obama for the most part is seeking to govern from the left, looking to solidify and rely on his own party more than woo Republicans. And yet he is by temperament judicious, even judicial. He'd have made a fine judge. But we don't need a judge. We need a blunt-spoken coach.

Obama may be mistaking motion for progress, calling signals for a game plan. A busy, industrious overachiever, he likes to check off boxes on a long to-do list. A genial, amenable guy, he likes to appeal to every constituency, or at least not write off any. A beau ideal of Harvard Law, he can't wait to tackle extra-credit answers on the exam.

But there is only one question on this great test of American fate: can he lead us away from plunging into another Depression?
...

link

Fineman is a true believer and has drunk deeply of the Kool Aid, if he is worried then this really does have legs and Obama is toast (to borrow a phrase from DU). 

[thundley4]

Swimming in the middle, he's denounced as a socialist by conservatives, criticized as a polite accommodationist by government-is-the-answer liberals, and increasingly, dismissed as being in over his head by technocrats.

Wait, what?  0Bama hasn't even came close to the middle yet.

[BEG]

Wait, what?  0Bama hasn't even came close to the middle yet.

Howard Fineman of NEWSWEEK wrote the article.   

[thundley4]

Howard Fineman of NEWSWEEK wrote the article.   

News Weak, that explains much. Thank you.

[Wretched Excess]

howard fineman is what one of the ladies that I work with refer to as a "jailhouse girlfriend"   (she only uses that phrase on men).  when the going gets slightly tough, you can rest assured that howard fineman and his ilk are have long since bailed out.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the "I told you that Obama was a loser a long time ago" stories our of fineman next.