THEY SHOOT UNICORNS, DON'T THEY:

Conservatives who consider Obama a thinly disguised Leninist will be surprised that liberals have grown disenchanted with their onetime hero. But you can't underestimate the naïveté and ignorance that inflated the bubble of the Obama Delusion--how fragile it was, how vulnerable to the first pinprick of reality. It turns out they really did expect a "transformative" presidency that would move us beyond left and right. They meant it! And in this childish belief they were encouraged by their candidate, who might have meant it too, for the same reasons. Obama's admiration for Barack Obama, after all, was even greater than theirs, and his ignorance of the messy practical realities of self-government almost as complete. 

By now, Fallows writes, "there is plenty of evidence about the things Obama and his team cannot do." These include managing the various crises in the Middle East, overcoming the culture wars, and restoring the economy to the full bloom of health. The author might have added several more items: writing a budget for the federal government, let's say, or containing health care costs, or reducing, rather than enlarging, the federal debt. .  .  . I'm sure you can come up with a few items of your own. Even balanced with what Fallows insists are Obama's successes--installing Obama-care, withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, "encouraging the Arab Spring" (?), managing relations with China--the executive tasks that were beyond Obama's competence should be enough to declare a mostly failed presidency. 

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