Obama, Ideology, and Competence

This will be a short little whip of a post, one I need to get to in order to break the streak of postless days I accumulated whilst bandying about the Caribbean avec mon chaton.

Since the time Senator Obama sewed up the Democratic nomination for President, I have been fairly critical of him and his policies on largely ideological grounds.  I knew as soon as he won that I was in for four long years (at least) of being incredibly at odds with the Administration.

That said, I allowed myself--like many others--to be lulled into thinking that while I wouldn't agree with their policies, at least the Obama team was going to be competent.  He seemed to do a good job assembling a cabinet and White House staff, and the transition seemed to be handled with aplomb.

Here we are, two years into the term, and not only do I disagree with them ideologically on almost everything--I now have come to question their basic competence.  You name the issue--especially in the past year--and they just don't seem to have it anymore.  Not only that, the President seems downright ambivalent about the job.  It seems they "shot their wad" on health care--and they simply have nothing left.