Dowd Characterizes Obama

Here is a bit from a Maureen Dowd NY Times op-ed that captures exactly the problem with Obama:

The president seems put upon and impatient with reality while his foes seem happy to embrace fantasy.

Obama can connect with policy. He just can’t connect with the objects of policy. Empathy seems more like an abstract concept than something to practice.

He has never shaken off that slight patronizing attitude toward the working-class voters he is losing now, the ones he dubbed “bitter” during his campaign. There is no premium in trying to save people’s jobs and lift them up and give them health care if they feel that you can’t relate to them. That’s how Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his job, despite D.C.’s progress on schools and crime.

The insane have achieved political respectability while the sane act too good for it all. The irrational celebrate while the rational act bored and above-it-all.

You would think it would be the easiest thing in the world for someone who threw away a career as a mulit-million dollar a year corporate lawyer to go and work in the tough neighborhoods of Chicago to be a community organizer to show a little empathy, a little passion for the "little people" that he has dedicated his life to. But apparently that is a task which is just too hard for Obama. Strange. Why did he pick a career as a community organizer and then as a politician if he didn't have passion for people?