Questioning What Went Wrong ~ By Jennifer Rubin

Commentary from CommentaryMagazine.com

By Jennifer Rubin 11.28.2009 - 8:00 AM Politico’s Arena section recently featured back-to-back questions for discussion. “Obama’s Charisma, Where Did He Leave It?” was followed by “Should Obama hit the reset button on the White House?” Well, that speaks volumes, huh? Like a Saturday Night Live skit, the questions depend on shared understandings that Obama isn’t who the liberal intelligentsia once thought he was and that his presidency isn’t doing so well. One of the ordinary folk who chimed in on the topic of charisma, reminded readers that not all of us thought Obama was so charismatic to begin with:

Lest you forget: millions of people, me included, never found Obama charismatic at all. Half the country, the truth to tell. I voted against a Democrat for the first time in over 40 years because of his candidacy – he always seemed to me exactly as he has turned out- a man who probably can take a test well, but has zero imagination, a man who thinks leading is telling people what he wants (though he sometimes doesn’t even do that), a man who constantly speaks ambiguously in order to always have an out.

But a great many people, ignoring the vapidity of Obama’s rhetoric about lowering the oceans and “we are the world,” did think s0 and were in full swoon. Now they no longer are. That includes a great many self-styled moderates and many members of the liberal media. The import is clear for the presidency: Obama is neither galvanizing the public opinion nor leading. His countless health-care speeches have done nothing to sway public opinion on ObamaCare. Even the rest of his agenda (e.g., cap-and-trade, card check) seems to be on permanent hold. His decisions on Guantanamo and KSM have been wildly unpopular. And on the world stage, the IOC, the mullahs, and the parties in the Middle East — well, just about everyone — are unmoved by Obama’s supposed mystique. READ FULL STORY >