Froma Harrop defends Obama on the grounds that he's being blamed for not being a god. It's a fair point, but it reminded me of his victory speech after winning the primaries in June of 2008:

I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.

OK, he didn't say he could do it all by himself, but so far I'm not seeing any new jobs, let alone good ones. Nor am I seeing the end to war, and the slowing of the rise of the oceans seems less probable or even needed. As for the planet healing, well, his administration DID issue a permit for the BP well and authorize more off shore drilling. And where is the expertise to stop this oil spill? All that criticizing of the previous administration and nobody in his own even reviewed our readiness for dealing with major oil spills? One can't say for sure how Bush would have handled this, but he's not President any more now, is he? The federal government is too big, bloated and loaded with conflicts of missions to believe it could ever respond coherently in a case like this.

I'm not upset that Obama isn't a god. I saw that coming. What I'm upset about is that he has been selling the federal government as a god. He was wrong all along and now it's showing itself to be just another bunch of fallible human beings working at cross purposes. The only possibly correct thing it's done was leave the Coast Guard in charge. So when people get upset with him, it's because his promises have failed in a big way. He's shown that all his inspirational speechifying had no substance to back it up. We're being used to pursue his progressive dream and a lot of us resent it. Just because you win an election, you don't have the right to max out the nation's credit card to be paid off by people who are still only children.