LITTLE ORPHAN BARRY:

Does Obama Have the Backbone? (Richard Cohen, October 6, 2009, Washington Post)

Barack Obama's trip to Copenhagen to pitch Chicago for the Olympics would have been a dumb move whatever the outcome. But as it turned out (an airy dismissal would not be an unfair description), it poses some questions about his presidency that are way more important than the proper venue for synchronized swimming. The first, and to my mind most important, is whether Obama knows who he is. [...]

[T]he ultimate in realism is for the president to gauge himself and who he is: Does he have the stomach and commitment for what is likely to continue to be an unpopular war? Will he send additional troops, but hedge by not sending enough -- so that the dying will be in vain? What does he believe, and will he ask Americans to die for it? Only he knows the answers to these questions. But based on his zigzagging so far and the suggestion from the Copenhagen trip that the somber seriousness of the presidency has yet to sink in, we have reason to wonder.

No, we don't. A guy whose entire career is based on the pursuit of tangible signs of approval from society to make-up for the lack of same from his absentee parents is not going to swim against the tide.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 10, 2009 6:54 AM