Who's Delusional?

These days quite a few people are frustrated with President Obama’s failure to challenge conservative ideology. The spending freeze — about which the best thing you can say in its favor is that it’s a transparently cynical PR stunt — has, for many, been the final straw: rhetorically, it’s a complete concession to Reaganism.

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There was a lot of delusion among progressives who convinced themselves, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, that Obama was a strong champion of their values. He wasn’t and isn’t.

That doesn’t mean that there’s no difference between the parties, that everything would have been the same if McCain had won. But progressives are in the process of losing a big chance to change the narrative, and that’s largely because they have a leader who never had any inclination to do so.

  Paul Krugman

Agreed in every point, reserving the right to question that last paragraph. If Obama never had any inclination to change the narrative (and I agree that he didn’t), then what “big chance” to change it are the progressives in the process of losing? We have Kucinich and Feingold. That’s pretty much it. And I don’t see that they have any chance of doing anything at all.

I have latched on to the “irrelevant” adjective for Obama from something I read recently, and now I have read a comment on this Paul Krugman post, it caused me to think, “Bingo!” This one doesn’t negate the irrelevancy charge, but it does describe very well another aspect I sense of the man:

I have come to the conclusion that Barrack Obama is America's single most inspirational social climber. – Michael Fonda, Shelton, WA

I am getting the help I need to circle in on an accurate characterization of the O.