Opinion The bold candidate,the disappointing president

To all these questions,at different times,I’ve had different answers. No,says one voice,get over it,he’s doing the best he could to lift America from the double whammy of war and economic meltdown. He’s smart and curious — and,anyway,just consider the mystical-nationalist-insular alternative.

Oh yeah,says another,he’s too cool a customer,a beguiling construct more than flesh and blood,an empty vessel for a misplaced idealism,a politician averse to pressing the flesh (and what else is politics?),a man who — not for nothing — tilts his chin upward when he speaks.

Back and forth go the voices,but there’s no getting away from the disappointment. This president feels flat — and somehow not quite genuine. He should place above his bed the words of Jonathan Alter: “Logic can convince but only emotion can motivate.”

On arriving in New York from London,I went to a party on the Upper East Side. It was a well-heeled crowd,almost all Obama supporters a couple of years back. “The guy’s a phony,” one guest said. “We need a Bloomberg,somebody who can manage,” said another,referring to the billionaire mayor of New York. “All this Clinton nostalgia,it’s because Obama is a loner,not interested in people,” said a third.

I was a struck by how people aren’t sure where Obama’s headed. There’s no narrative to the presidency. It was about believable change. Now the president seems less a passionate change agent than a careful calculator unsure of his core beliefs. Consider President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil,now about to leave office after an extraordinary presidency. Here are two outsider politicians with lullaby-like names and the kinds of faces not previously seen on their nations’ banknotes,breaking moulds of race or class. But there the resemblance ends.

Lula proved all of a piece — one of eight children from the impoverished far north of Brazil,a former steelworker who repaired social fracture in one of the world’s most unequal societies. Obama has so far failed that critical authenticity test.

There was an anti-establishment frisson to Obama,the black man who battled to overcome prejudice and America’s “original sin” to win the nation’s highest office. Yet he has revealed himself as an elite product of America’s elite schools,a politician who built his image with great intelligence but shows little taste for the nitty-gritty. Bipartisanship,when it’s not just oratory,begins with small gestures.

I was talking to a Democratic Party donor,a Kansas City businessman. He said he’s given over $30,000 to Obama — and not a word of thanks. He was irritated. Lots of people think this president is too smug to write thank-you notes or make quick courtesy calls.

After the inevitable midterm defeat,Obama needs to make some decisions. The facile attacks on “fat-cat bankers” have to end. They don’t convince the left and they infuriate the right. Prosecute,by all means,but don’t rail. But the president has to lead.

Obama is confronting an international conviction that he’s hesitant. The agonising review that led to the Afghan surge left an impression of uncertainty. In the end we got what some have called the Groucho Marx Hello,I Must be Going! plan,a brief reinforcement to be reversed in time for the 2012 campaign.

Boldness characterised Obama’s campaign; only that will get him re-elected in 2012. He needs to invigorate his team with doers rather than thinkers. He needs to become serious about balancing the budget. He needs a foreign policy that reflects a changed world not a churlish Congress.

And he must admit to himself that perhaps the disappointed are not misguided but rational,even scientific — words he likes. The New York Times