The Death of Hope

Fouad Ajami declares the 2008 model Obama to be obsolescent only two years later and reminds us how this whole mess got started:

Mr. Obama could protest that his swift and sudden fall from grace is no fault of his. He had been a blank slate, and the devotees had projected onto him their hopes and dreams. His victory had not been the triumph of policies he had enunciated in great detail. He had never run anything in his entire life. He had a scant public record, but oddly this worked to his advantage. If he was going to begin the world anew, it was better that he knew little about the machinery of government.

How'd that work out?

Read the whole piece. As with Bill Clinton in 1994 it's way too early to declare this presidency dead meat in the next election. Bill Clinton hit similar laws after the 1994 midterms and yet came back to win in '96 thanks in no small part to the GOP nominating a weak candidate.