When you've lost Dana Milbank ....

Dana Milbank in the Washington Post:  The most powerful man on Earth?  Note the question mark as another rube goes on to rip Obama a new one.

A familiar air of indecision preceded President Obama’s pep talk to the nation.

The first draft of his schedule for Monday contained no plans to comment on the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor’s. Then the White House announced that he would speak at 1 p.m. A second update changed that to 1:30. At 1:52, Obama walked into the State Dining Room to read his statement. Judging from the market reaction, he should have stuck with his original instinct.

A few comments of my own. I saw part of the speech on TV and if this was a pep talk, it should have been given by someone else. The suit was there and so was the teleprompter, the only thing missing was a human being.  This was a talk given by someone who was going through the motions, who would rather be having a root canal without anesthetic. Who ran from the lectern as soon as he stopped talking.  And from the other side of the camera, it was painful to watch; and somewhat scary. You knew that when Obama's reaction to the financial crisis is extending unemployment benefits you were looking at a man who's intellectually bankrupt; who is so clueless that we would be better off with no President ... then we could move ahead.

It's now obvious that Obama is an obstacle, a wall against which good ideas go to die. He's the guy who rips the life-preserver out of the hands of the drowning man. It's his way or the highway even if the heavens fall.

The man is genuinely scary.

Back to Milbank who still doesn't get what the rest of us  understood in 2008. 

That is the enduring mystery of Obama’s presidency. He delivered his statement on the economy beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, but that was as close as he came to forceful leadership. He looked grim and swallowed hard and frequently as he mixed fatalism (“markets will rise and fall”) with vague, patriotic exhortations (“this is the United States of America”).

“There will always be economic factors that we can’t control,” Obama said. Maybe. But it would be nice if the president gave it a try.

Dana, you have seen the best that he had to give.  It's all there is to HopeN'Change.  Obama's actions in office are only a mystery to those who sold the nation this package of damaged goods, this incredible narcissist who thought that being President was living in a nice house with servants and your own air force presiding over endless parties with your own coterie of Hollywood celebrities. Obama may very well be the nation's first black blond joke.