You have this so exquisitely, excruciatingly, exactly, right. President Obama has been handicapped by the notion that he has to prove what he’s not (radical, socialist, inexperienced, irresponsible…) If he had come out swinging Jan 20, 2009, instead of catering to the banks while putting Summers and Geithner on his team, the Tea Party would have died stillborn. A lot of people just want “Change,” wherever they can find it. I still prefer our current president’s brand, but firmly and without compromise. The promise of his books was not to reach out to Republican leadership, it was to reach over their heads to the people their divisive rhetoric had, temporarily, appealed to for one reason or another.