Fallen off Olympus, Obama stammers

Gone is the soaring rhetoric and promising tone. Absent is that special credibility he once held with voters who saw him as an adult promising to bring some common sense to Washington. That winning audacity has been replaced by stiff irritability. Hopeful visions have given way to scolding lectures. Watching him speak now is like watching Meat Loaf crash around onstage, all fat and sweaty, crooning his old love songs and trying to catch a spark — only to faint onstage, be revived by medics and insist on finishing his show. It is desperation defined.