Maureen Dowd's Frustrated Too: 'Maybe Obama Was Not Even The Person He Was Waiting For'

September 4th, 2011 10:56 AM

On Wednesday, the President of the United States actually sent an email message to his followers complaining that he's frustrated by his inability to get everything he wants through a Congress with a different vision of the world.

On Sunday, New York Times columnist said she too is frustrated - "Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for":

Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.

The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.

The White House team is flailing -- reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It's repugnant.

After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president's advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn't going to be that awe-inspiring.

''The issue isn't the size or the newness of the ideas,'' one said. ''It's less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.''

The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.

For those that have forgotten, presidential candidate Obama told supporters in February 2008:

You see, the challenges we face will not be solved with one meeting in one night. It will not be resolved on even a Super Duper Tuesday. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have so little, who've been told that they cannot have what they dream, that they cannot be what they imagine. Yes, they can.


It appears the past grand speeches of Obama's are now to be ridiculed.

Dowd also went after his nomination acceptance address in Denver - "spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium" - as well as his teleprompter.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

It of course would be marvelous if such scorn was lasting, but this time next year, as the campaign enters the homestretch, Dowd's rapier wit will solely target whoever the GOP presidential nominee is.

With her ilk, it's a metaphysical certitude Obama will by the messiah again, and they'll be the ones he's been waiting for.