Obama Is Acting Like an Amateur—or a Candidate

The stuttering start of Barack Obama’s presidency has been a regular amateur hour, writes Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post. He’s failed to assert his authority on the stimulus, apologized for other people’s tax mistakes, and even held bizarre campaign-like events in Indiana and Florida. “Absent is maturity—that grown-up quality of leadership that is palpable when the real deal enters a room.”

As he worked the crowd in Elkhart, it was clear that “Obama wants too much to be liked.” But presidents have to give up being liked—it’s the price of the job. Last week Obama looked younger, less formed, even haunted. “Had he been visited by the ghosts of Christmas future?” Parker wonders. “Or had he looked into the eyes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and realized that he was not among friends?”