Washington Post Commentary: Obama Seems Detached

He’s the leader of the free world at a time when the country is facing an economic crisis, and yet President Barack Obama seems mighty detached.

 

That’s the conclusion of an opinion piece in The Washington Post, where Dana Milbank writes that the president’s “pep talk” to the nation on Monday was anything but peppy.

 

With the stock market tanking, Obama’s response to S&P’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, Obama’s remarks — “No matter what some agency may say, we’ve always been and always will be a AAA country” — seemed as if he were “comforting a child who had been teased by the class bully,” Milbank writes.

 

Milbank doesn’t accuse Obama of fiddling while Rome burns, but does point out that he “plods along, raising gobs of cash for his reelection bid.”

 

He’s willing to accept that Obama can’t control all economic factors, but adds, “it would be nice if the president gave it a try.”