The Bloom Is Off the Rose

Andrew Sullivan, perhaps President Obama's most prominent groupie at The Atlantic, has had enough. The President, by presenting a budget that does nothing substantive to trim the deficit or our debt, has shown himself, in Sullivan's view, to be unserious about averting the fiscal disaster that looms in our nation's near to mid-future.

As you read this understand that it was written by one of the more starry-eyed of Mr. Obama's media adorers in the last election:

[T]his president is too weak, too cautious, too beholden to politics over policy to lead. In this budget, in his refusal to do anything concrete to tackle the looming entitlement debt, in his failure to address the generational injustice, in his blithe indifference to the increasing danger of default, he has betrayed those of us who took him to be a serious president prepared to put the good of the country before his short term political interests. Like his State of the Union, this budget is good short term politics but such a massive pile of fiscal bull.... it makes it perfectly clear that Obama is kicking this vital issue down the road.

To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you're fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama's cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America's fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.

If Andrew Sullivan is talking like this how many of Mr. Obama's less infatuated admirers are beginning to think that they'd allowed themselves to be seduced by a smooth-talking empty suit?