Self-Pity in the White House

Up to a point, Peter Baker’s excellent Times Magazine piece on the mood in the Obama White House inspires a certain amount of sympathy for this administration. When Baker’s sources complain that their boss is being unfairly maligned by foes and friends (or “frenemies,” perhaps) alike, they have a point: The most strident criticisms of the Obama presidency have almost all been at least somewhat unfair, whether it’s conservatives calling the president a socialist and a radical (when actually he’s just a very conventional liberal), left-wingers claiming that he’s a sell-out and a crypto-conservative (when actually he’s accomplished more for the left than any president since L.B.J.), or D.C. insiders dismissing his political skills and salesmanship (hey, you try being a political salesman when the unemployment rate is 9.5 percent!). I’m no great admirer of Barack Obama’s policies, but some of the discontent swirling around the White House at the moment is the usual cult-of-the-presidency nonsense, in which the occupant of the Oval Office is held responsible for forces and events beyond his control, and everyone pretends that the world would be perfect if he weren’t so incompetent, so cowardly, or so evil.