Many people forget that Barak Obama was just a few years ago, merely a state legislator. It was only 2005, not quite six years ago, that he first came to Washington as a Senator. While in the Senate, he was mentored by some of the old hands there, including Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Robert Byrd, Senator Tom Daschle and Senator Harry Reid. If Senator Reid loses his re-election bid, as most polls indicate, none of the people listed will be in the Senate next year.
When I look back at President Obama's first two years in office, what strikes me is how passive he has been. The stimulus bill passes was quite tepid; the signature Healthcare Reform was left to the hands of the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and only rescued by Presidential action when the election of Scott Brown threatened to block it. The Financial Reform bill was also quite mild, partly because of intense lobbying by the banking industry but also because the attitude in the Whitehouse was "We need a bill but we don't care what's in it." In many ways, we've experienced two years of Senator Obama instead of President Obama.
With the departure of Rahm Emmanuel and Larry Summers, the Clintonite aspects of the current administration will likely fade and we will see much more of Obama's style of leadership, if he has any. The founders of the country created the office of the President because they felt that the country couldn't simply run on auto-pilot. We are still waiting to see of Barak Obama is up to the job.
