NOTHING'S MORE DISAPPOINTING THAN HIS PRESENCE:

What happened to the ‘fierce urgency of now’? (Ezra Klein, 4/05/11, Washington Post)

Where is President Obama?

The video announcing his intent to seek reelection introduced us to Ed from North Carolina and Gladys from Nevada and Katherine from Colorado and Mike from New York and Alice from Michigan — but no Obama. Not even a picture.

The battle over funding the government for the rest of 2011 has gone on for months, but the most involvement we’ve seen from Obama was a few phone calls placed to negotiators over the weekend. It’s the “Can you hear me now?” strategy. This wouldn’t matter so much if they were being heard. Unfortunately, the White House let House Speaker John Boehner and the tea party good-cop-bad-cop them into agreeing to the $30 billion-plus in cuts that the GOP leadership wanted from Day One. With negotiations breaking down, Obama has invited congressional leaders to the White House to hammer out a deal — but at this point, the question is simply how bad the final agreement will be.

But perhaps more disappointing are the times the president has shown up.

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