BLOGGED DOWN

I always feel guilty when I have not posted for a few days. I worry that I will have let down my loyal readers. Don't get me wrong. I know I don't have that many loyal readers. On a good day, I might get about 50 or so visitors. That's not a lot in the blogosphere. But still.

One of the reasons that I have not posted anything since last Wednesday is because I have been away at a conference. I find it difficult to post things and deal with comments when I am travelling. But I am now back and can no longer use that excuse.

Another problem that I have been having lately is that posting on my favorite topic - President Obama - is becoming less fun for me. You see, I am essentially a contrarian. And criticizing the President is now becoming a bit too common place for my style of blogging. Everyone seems to be a critic, even those who strongly identify with and support him. They are crowding me out.

For example, take a look at today's Real Clear Politics.com. Roger Cohen, a self-professed "admirer" of the President, in his article entitled "Obama in His Labyrinth", published in the New York Times no less, writes that he is "worried". The President "feels over-managed, over-scripted to me, to the point where he's not showing the guts that prevailed at various difficult moments in the campaign". The opinion piece goes on to explain the author's disappointment with a long list of Obama's non-achievements to date.

Another commentator, Richard Cohen, who confesses that he supported Obama in the primaries against Hillary and voted for him "with both glee and enthusiasm", writes in his article, "Missing Barack Obama" (the title says it all) of a President "whose moral clarity has been dissipated". Rather than moral clarity it has all become "an Obama gray". The author lists his personal disappointments and wonders where the Barack Obama of the "famous speech on race" has gone.

There are several other similar pieces from David Kuhn's "Obama's Failing: Too Much Head, Too Little Gut" to the more scathing piece by Pat Buchanan "Our Pushover President". Andrew Malcolm's article "Now Democrats join Dick Cheney's critique of Obama" points out negative reviews from some other friendlies - Arianna Huffington and Leslie Gelb.

All of these critical pieces and others like them can be seen in just the one day, November 24, postings on RealClearPolitics. com. What is also interesting to note is the absence of any positive assessments.

So there it is. Unless the tide turns or I quit being a contrarian (unlikely I agree), I will have to write about other things.