A Where’s Waldo? Presidency

(3 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Where’s Obama?

Ruth Marcus has recently posted an essay on Truthdig.com with the strangely evocative title “A Where’s Waldo? Presidency.”

For a man who won office talking about change we can believe in, Barack Obama can be a strangely passive president. There are a startling number of occasions in which the president has been missing in action-unwilling, reluctant or late to weigh in on the issue of the moment.

On health care, for instance, he took on a big fight without being able to articulate a clear message or being willing to set out any but the broadest policy prescriptions.

That was not an isolated case. Where, for example, is the president on the verge of a potential government shutdown-if not this week, then a few weeks from now?

Obama has said he agrees with some of his fiscal commission’s recommendations and disagrees with others. Which ones does he disagree with?

Where’s Obama? No matter how hard you look, sometimes he’s impossible to find.

Where’s Obama? One place you don’t have to look is Wisconsin, even though some people interpret Obama’s inspiring “walk the line” 2008 campaign speech as if it was a promise that Wisconsin right now is exactly where he would be.

“If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain, when I’m in the White House I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself – I’ll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America.”