Our Champion?

Robert Borosage had the same reaction to David Brooks's column as I did:

Obama's problem isn't that he's tied himself to "liberal leadership" in the
Congress (surely an oxymoron in the Senate). It is that he appears to be
straying from the promise that swept him into office. His great genius was to
run a campaign that understood how much Americans wanted change. He presented
himself as an outsider who would challenge the old ways of doing business, sweep
the money changers from the temple, and take on the entrenched corporate
lobbies. He pledged to get us out of Iraq, and to bring the money home to invest
in America.

Is he suffering because he has followed that course? Or are
doubts growing because he appears to be wavering, cowed by Wall Street, waltzing
with the drug companies, getting rolled by oil and coal interests, squandering
more resources and lives abroad, while talking about cutting Medicare and Social
Security?

Americans want this president to succeed. The majority that elected him
want Washington changed. They want him to take on the entrenched special
interests. They will punish those -- particularly Democrats -- who stand in his
way. But they increasingly wonder if he is the champion they elected. Obama's
leadership strategy -- which is to emphasize compromise, elevate bipartisanship,
put everyone at the table, blur lines of disagreement -- does little to dispel
these doubts.