towards inspiring hope but comforting those he cannot help, warning those he will not help.

The other path? Disappointment, disaffection, danger. An Obama who speaks of unity, but lets the competing priorities of his followers overwhelm him. Those who aren’t bored yet will find, then, that their icon has feet of clay, feet capable of walking all over them. Surely someone else has noticed by now that so many of the expectations that have been laid on Obama — in which process, let it be said, he has acquiesced with the endearing mixture of coyness and encouragement typical of, say, the prettiest girl in high school — are strangely contradictory? That he cannot both rescue American agriculture and reduce world hunger? That he cannot both withdraw immediately from Iraq and leave a stable West Asia? That he cannot both rescue Detroit and act on climate change? That he cannot simultaneously “solve” Kashmir, ally with India, prop up Pakistan and fight an Afghan war? Whichever problem he addresses, interest groups that see in him hope will be disappointed, and that disappointment will be harsher the more exalted their current hopes. And if he attempts to be, audaciously, all things to all people once he governs; if he expects that his core of decency will continue to protect him; he is likely to stumble badly.

Something like that’s happened before, after all. The American electorate, bruised by Nixon as now they’ve been bruised by Bush, voted in a transformative liberal in 1976. Jimmy Carter’s ascent to the White House was considered historic then: a genuine outsider, someone willing to tell the truth about everything, a good, decent person in the way that few presidents had been till that point. But he faced crises abroad and at home — crises that his consensual approach couldn’t fix. For leaders who rely on personal integrity or charm, the moment helplessness or the slightest hint of ridicule seeps in, disaster awaits. (Obama has been immune to ridicule so far. Does anyone truly think that will last?) The dashed hopes of Carter’s presidency created Reagan, and set back liberal hopes for a generation.

... contd.