the president knows that is what has happened

Politics Coverage of US politics in the UK generally seems to consist of a general bewilderment about the tea party movement and a simplistic view that the reason that they're making in-roads is because President Obama is doing badly. Bother to look at US sources and the situation is inevitably more complex. Interview on FOX News of all places, on The O'Reilly Factor, John Stewart suggested it was that the people expected a visionary and have a functionary, which sounds pretty grim.

What this thorough interview with Obama with Rolling Stone Magazine indicates, at least to me, is that the president knows that is what has happened, that as I suggested of our own Business Secretary Vince Cable last week, power stunts ideology and that it's not until your faced with the bureaucracy you really understand what can be accomplished and that contrary to popular belief there are some issues which can't be accomplished simply because you're the President. There are local politicians from opposing forces and their (to use his fabulous word) "recalcitrance".

But what I particularly don't understand is why there are people in his country who don't think that it's good thing that their president could give an interview that thoughtful, that they much preferred the Bush days, that they don't want their president to have an intellectual weight, be inquisitive. The West Wing comparisons are unavoidable once again. The next election will be fought between a Bartlett figure, an intellectual and a folksy Ritchie figure, presumably Palin. But if the Democrats don't go out and sell their leader's accomplishments more effectively the result could head in the opposite direction.