New theory: Maybe Obama’s too smart and sensitive to be a good president

If this is what the left needs to tell itself to come to terms with the prospect of defeat, so be it. We all find our own paths through the Kubler-Ross model, my friends. Don’t mock someone just because they’re momentarily stuck on stage one.
Bill Clinton allegedly thinks O’s “incompetent” and an “amateur,” but I guess this theory works too:

As devotees of Barack Obama know all too well, qualities that made him so attractive as a candidate — an affinity for subtle arguments, a tendency to carefully weigh his options — have at times proved less useful in his role as president. That carefulness has been read as indecisiveness. The subtle arguments have sounded, to some ears, like hedging. In response, the president has simplified his rhetoric…

To many who were feverishly devoted to Obama’s candidacy four years ago, what was most exciting wasn’t just the idea that American voters could elect a black man. It was the idea that we could elect — and be represented by — someone who was unapologetically intellectual. But in the current political climate, intellectual can too often equal ineffectual. Thanks to a system that’s broken by partisanship and pandering to the lowest common denominator, being in politics — even being the president — may have less to do with holding your ground than holding your nose.

It’s hard not to come away from the Vanity Fair article without feeling, strangely enough, that the White House is holding Obama back. The gulf between the brilliant young man who wanted to change the world and the stymied president who can barely pass a piece of legislation, the cosmopolitan wearer of the sarong and the lock-step wearer of the flag pin, suggests he could have served the American people far more effectively if he weren’t bogged down being the leader of the free world.

He’s too good for us. If only we could make him philosopher-king, then, maybe, he’d reach his full potential. Imagine the press conference at which he proclaims the new 50-percent marginal rate on the middle class. The bad news? The economy is instantly crushed by the oppressive new tax burden. The good news? He makes the announcement in verse, while plucking a lyre.

John Merline of IBD has a nice illustration of The One’s immense intellectual capacity to say whatever he needs to in order to benefit politically at any given moment. Exit question: Dick Morris thinks Romney’s winning this thing in a landslide, so … we’re pretty much guaranteed another term of Hopenchange then, huh?