GROWING UNEASE ABOUT "THE ONE" - AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  We've said often here that some of the best reporting on American politics is done by the British press. We see another example today in The Times of London, in a piece by Tony Allen-Mills, reporting anger at the president, especially his tactics and his ever-present TV image:

WHEN the White House announced last week that President Barack Obama will be returning to the nation’s television screens on Tuesday for a prime-time press conference that will postpone the latest episode of American Idol - the talent show watched by 25m viewers - fans of the programme were quick to respond.

“Stop, please stop, Mr O, we can’t take much more,” one angry viewer wrote on an Idol-related website. “Not again!” complained another. “It’s the same speech he’s been giving for the past year.”

There were dark mutterings that by commandeering evening programming only a few days after he appeared on Jay Leno’s popular late-night chat show, Obama was “just like Fidel Castro [of Cuba] and Hugo Chavez [of Venezuela] - always on camera, always giving speeches and lecturing”.

The barbed response to the prospect of yet another mass-media dose of Obama’s economic prescriptions underlined the dangers the president is facing as he struggles to sell his recovery efforts to a country seething with anger and anxiety over the costs, effectiveness and potential abuse of the government’s trillion-dollar bailout programme.

COMMENT:  The story points out that some of this anger is coming from Democrats.  The Brits have picked up something that is certainly discussed here, but with less focus - that the president may be wearing out his welcome, that the folksy, "we're the ones we've been waiting for" theme isn't resonating much any longer.  Sometimes Mr. Obama comes off as less than serious, less in command than he should be.  Franklin Roosevelt used radio to speak to the nation, but he wasn't on the air as often as Obama is, and he had a commanding presence.  Obama is developing the image of commander-in-training.

March 22, 2009