Somewhat delayed, here are last week’s results from the Watcher’s Council. Council Submissions First place with 3 points! -Soccer Dad – The no-state solution Second place with 2 1/3  points! – Joshuapundit – Obama: ” Screw Kentucky” …

To me, there never was a positive message. Leaving aside those who simply wanted to see a black president – which is at least defendable – Americans voted for Obama for two reasons: self-pity and class-consciousness.

Besides, don´t forget that in his life Obama rose through a number of institutions without leaving a mark. He is by all accounts very self-contained, aloof, I´d say borderline narcissistic. This is not someone who likes to take responsibility, to lead from the front. This is not someone who sees himself as part of ANY team. Ambition and adaptability do not equal leadership.

This week’s Watcher’s Council submissions are UP! Israeli Missile Defense Group Emphasizes Need, Technological Feasibility Of Anti-Missile Systems – Mere Rhetoric writes about a group of Israeli military experts who argue that Israel’s ability to fi…

Unless–as some think, he is diabolical enough to welcome this situation growing into a true crisis that he can use to manipulate the change he wants, and we don’t want. Nah! No American President would do that.

My brother-in-law immigrated from Germany as a child a shortly after WW2. Before Obama took office he said that Obama would use a “crisis” to assume more and more power, “just like the Nazis,” he said. Spoken by someone who spend the first 9 years of his life under the Nazis.

To my way of thinking, Obama is overselling this as a crisis. Yes, we have problems. 1) We need to rein in our overspending. 2) We need to make a better transition to alternate energies and from imported oil.( nuclear and liquefied coal look good, also.) That does NOT mean, like the Democrats believe, that we stop drilling for oil. It does mean that government assistance in regulating and improving the electric grid will be useful, for example. 3) Contrary to what many Democrats believe, the Jihadists won’t go away now that Obama is in office.

But it sure ain’t like the Depression I heard about from my parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.

You state, “Are you getting the feeling that Obama, contrary to the hope hype, is a very grim, depressed man?”

Actually, I don’t. I don’t think he is depressed at all.

I think he is doing one of two things:

1. He realizes that people are actually expecting him to do something that will result in improvements. This is a first for him. Therefore, he has to lower the expectations. He excelled at creating these soaring hopes and dreams during the campaign. Now it’s game time so he has to excel at shaping how people perceive him and what he is (or is not) achieving.

2. As many others have wondered, he is using rhetoric to create the sense of panic or crisis that will pave the way for him and folks to usher in far-reaching leftists policies.

But as to your question: he does not look depressed. When I see him on tv, I think he is loving every minute of this.

I watched him sign the Ledbetter bill the other day and he was handing out his pens with this look on his face as if he just knows that people want anything he has touched.

I just think he is loving the adulation.