Maybe There Was Nothing There To Begin With

I came across the following at Instapundit:

MAUREEN DOWD: If only Obama were more like Sarah Palin. “The animating spirit that electrified his political movement has sputtered out. . . . Like Reagan, Obama is a detached loner with a strong, savvy wife. But unlike Reagan, he doesn’t have the acting skills to project concern about what’s happening to people.”

I think Obama’s “charisma” was based on voter narcissism — people excited not just about electing a black President, but about themselves, voting for a black President. Now that’s over, and they’re stuck just with him, and emptied of their own narcissism there’s not much there to fill out the suit. As Ann Althouse says, “I think what Obama seems to have become, he always was.”

Obama is a perfect example of the Peter Principal in that he is an incompetent man who has risen to his level of his incompetence, or, my favorite version, cream rises to the top and clabbers. He simply had done nothing in his life to prepare him to lead the United States.

We've all known someone who has managed to BS and charm themselves in to undeserved promotions. Once they have the desired position they immediately set their aim at the next position. They never stay in one place long enough to actually accomplish anything and sooner or later they fail, and usually fail miserably.

There is nothing wrong with ambition but a little substance would be nice. In Obama's case there simply is nothing there. Worse, he has surrounded himself with advisers who are either idiots (Joe Biden) or thugs (Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod) and Obama doesn't have the experience or intellectual heft to keep them in check.

I agree with Instapundit that for many, voting for Obama was an exercise in narcissism, It made people feel good about themselves that they voted for a black guy with a funny name. I just wonder how good they are feeling now.