Humble Origins

Slow, Depressed, Weak
The American economy slowed drastically in the first quarter of 2014, as wintry weather depressed corporate spending and housing sector activity, while weak exports and smaller additions to inventories by businesses also held back growth. (New York Times, 4/30/2014)

Does Obama own the economy...yet?


Liberals Turn
Stop whining, Mr. President. And stop whiffing.
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You simply proclaim what you believe as though you know it to be absolutely true, hoping we recognize the truth of it, and, if we don’t, then we’ve disappointed you again.
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It doesn’t feel like leadership. It doesn’t feel like you’re in command of your world.
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The Times’s Mark Landler, who traveled with the president on his Asia trip, reported that Obama will try to regain the offensive, including a graduation address at West Point putting his foreign policy in context.

Mr. President, don’t you know that we’re speeched out? It’s not what we need right now.
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But now when captured alone in a picture, you seem disconnected and adrift. (Maureen Dowd, New York Times, 4/29/2014)

When you've lost Maureen Dowd (who writes her first non-Bush column in five years), your presidency is pretty much over.


Hollywood Turns
The difference for Mr. Obama may be the gap between what his supporters expected and what they now see.
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“The arts are often a left or progressive community,” said Nato Thompson, the chief curator at Creative Time, a public arts group in New York City that sponsors and promotes art exhibitions around the country. “There are a lot of people being let down by a president they were very enthusiastic about. There’s a big sense of betrayal.” (New York Times, 4/30/2014)

CLARIFICATION: When you have lost Maureen Dowd AND Hollywood, your presidency is pretty much over.