“What many screenwriters, novelists and visual artists have seized on is not an inspirational story of the first black president. Instead they have found more compelling story lines in the bleaker, morally fraught parts of Mr. Obama’s legacy.”
The thrill up the leg is gone.
There’s not even a tingle in the toes.
President Obama’s media supporters are abandoning him. Even the liberal culture seems to be abandoning him. And as he slips into the low 40s in two recent polls, it’s hard to see how he recasts his once-glittering image.
This is the kind of sea change that goes beyond polling numbers. The very mass culture that celebrated Barack Obama, that turned him into an international icon, is now migrating toward the darker side of his legacy, perhaps fueled by a sense of frustration and disappointment.
On the pundit front, the president’s self-description on his Asia trip as a man trying to hit singles and doubles, along with the occasional homer, drew a stinging rebuke from Maureen Dowd. The New York Times columnist’s message: Stop whining.
“You are the American president. And the American president should not perpetually use the word ‘eventually.’ And he should not set a tone of resignation with references to this being a relay race and say he’s willing to take ‘a quarter of a loaf or half a loaf,’ and muse that things may not come ‘to full fruition on your timetable.’
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