I was pleased to read Mark Adam's post on Obama's disaffection with the Presidency--admittedly due to some degree of confirmation bias, but also because of the nagging observations that are clumping together at the back of my mind.

Its not just all the vacationing, its the campaigning as well--something he has always clearly enjoyed, feels he's good at, and gives him strokes when he is getting precious few of those from anyone these days. The pea that tipped the scales over into my conscious mind was Robert Gibb's self-described inartful criticism of the professional left as spoiled cry-babies.

Inartful in this context means accidentally telling the truth in liberal-progressive circles. Clearly the man was at his limit, and did the White House version of cursing out the passengers, grabbing a beer and exiting the plane via the emergency escape slide.

Gibbs is simply a bellwether for the internal climate of the White House, essentially confirming what everyone really already knows--its really bad, and its getting worse. The Fed's action today of keeping interest rates pretty much at zero, reveals the whole media narrative of recovery as a total fiction from start to finish. The dreadful reality for the Obama administration is that its economic ideas are indistinguishable from magic spells to make Zulu shields impenetrable to bullets--great for morale before the battle, not so much afterwards.

So is Roger Simon right? Does Obama want to be President? Did he ever?

Well of course he did--his entire life has been a carefully executed plan to achieve ever-higher office, with the natural culmination being the Presidency. Ambition isn't unusual for Presidents, but unlike say, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama has also been a principled President, willing to be unpopular to advance ideological goals. No one really expects Obama to 'triangulate' after what could be a Republican landslide.

In fact, I think his principled (stubborn?) approach to politics is being confused with apathy when its really a matter on how Obama views the Presidency.

For Bill Clinton, ideology was simply a means to an end. When he couldn't go left, he went right, famously declaring that the era of big government was over. For Clinton, life is high school--popularity is the only accepted currency. You try out for sports, run for student council or audition for the lead in the school play to get a spotlight, and score with the chicks. For Barack Obama, popularity was simply a means to an end, which for him was to transform the United States into a socialist Republic literally overnight. Obama is an idealist--a sorely disappointed one at present.

So what does an idealist do when he can't change the world? As much of the professional left is demonstrating, one option is to bitch, moan and blame everyone in sight for your own failures. He's doing that of course, but increasingly he is disassociating--avoiding the unpleasantness and substituting other, more rewarding activities.

Obama is above all, a rational creature, in control of his emotions. He gives every indication that he's reached a conclusion about his Presidency and is intellectually and emotionally moving on to the next project. His faith in himself and his ideology cannot be dented with a small thing like epic failure--he will, he is instead, laying the blame for his failure on circumstances and perhaps misjudgments--figuring out what lessons to take with him.

Obama is 49 years old---a young man by political standards, and one with a mission from God.