A year later, hope dissolves into disappointment

[bijou]

A year ago, on an Inauguration Day like no other, Barack Obama placed his hand upon the Lincoln Bible and then assured a weary nation that, with hope and virtue, we could "brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come."

Across the country, in Seattle, Glen Boyd had only just entered his own economic storm. A couple of weeks out of work as a DIRECTV salesman, the Obama supporter nevertheless watched the inauguration on TV with a kind of goose-pimply, things-are-bound-to-get-better anticipation. He really felt it, that thing which the poet Alexander Pope said springs eternal.

"I felt a tremendous sense of pride. I felt like he was the right guy. I felt a sense of optimism," recalls Boyd.

Now, a year later, Boyd writes this in his blog: "We believed what the man said in all those `yes, we can' speeches. My one question is, where are all those reassuring speeches now?"

"To say I'm disappointed by the Obama presidency thus far would be an understatement."

Forget "can," "change" and, above all, "hope." The new word echoing in the blogosphere and beyond as Obama enters Year Two: disappointment. ...

Schadenfreude alert.