Bloodless President Barack Obama makes Americans wistful for George W Bush
Barack Obama's reaction to bad news is to play it so cool that Americans yearn
for a bit more drama - and some even for his predecessor, writes Toby
Harnden in Washington.
During the election campaign, Barack
Obama's cool detachment was a winning quality, the "No Drama
Obama" a welcome contrast with the "Mr Angry" John McCain,
never mind the hot-headed "I'm the decider" President George W
Bush.
A year into his presidency, however, Mr Obama seems a curiously bloodless
president. If he experiences passion, he seldom shows it. It is often
anyone's guess as to whether an event or issue truly moves him.
He has spent more than two months considering a troop increase but do we know
how he really feels about the Afghan war?
In a sign that the Obama honeymoon truly is over, I began to hear this week
the first stirrings of a wistfulness about Mr Bush. "I never thought
I'd hear myself say it," one Democrat told me. "But Obama makes
you feel that at least with Bush you knew where he was on something."
When Mr Bush's Republicans were defeated in the 2006 mid-term elections, it
was the President himself who stepped up and declared that his party had
received "a thumpin'". The Democratic defeats on Tuesday were not
on anything like the same scale but Mr Obama acted as if nothing at all had
happened.
Mr Obama had campaigned for Jon Corzine, New Jersey's Democratic governor,
five times, twice just last Sunday. But when Mr Corzine lost by four points
in a state Mr Obama won by 15 last year - a 19-point swing to Republicans -
White House aides just shrugged.
Read it all - and weep for what is left of our country at UK Telegraph
