the corner office

I think Barack Obama won the US presidential election because some voters saw him as a messiah and other voters saw him as a Not-Bush. Now those who expected great things of him are inevitably disappointed, and those who liked his Not-Bushness have forgotten what George Bush was like. In short, Obama now needs to be judged on real presidenting, and his decline in popularity says it all.

Ironically, different people will like him less for different reasons. Personally I think his economics sucks, he hasn't delivered on decent-human-being stuff like closing Gitmo, he's shown himself corruptible (a la car company bailouts), he's shown himself willing to posture for political expediency (a la banker bashing), and as an example of the arrogance of power, he's just delivered a state of the union address wherein he blames the languishing of his healthcare reforms on his failure to explain them better, instead of accepting that his fellow Americans simply don't want what he's offering.

So in a nutshell, despite being an inspirational figure, being articulate and coherent (a nice change, admittedly), he remains a typical politician. I said as much when he was elected, but I think I expected more of him.

Let's be honest though: he might not be the ubermensch people wanted him to be, but compared to the leaders closer to my frame of reference, he's neither the disaster that Gordon Brown is, nor the travesty that Jacob Zuma is. Americans are still pretty lucky in their leader.