A classic illustration of how an intelligent man falls out of touch once he becomes President

The title link is a Washington Post story of a conference call Obama held with a couple of his administration officials and half a dozen Congressional leaders on healthcare. He's only been President for 5 months and two weeks, but here he is

1) using the stenographers at the Washington Post to communicate with liberal pressure groups like MoveOn and Democracy for America--not just to communicate with them, but to chastise and express displeasure with them. Your Excellency, if you want to communicate with a group, pick up the phone and call them, or invite them to a conference call. Don't use the corrupt inside-the-Beltway media to try to dictate to them at arm's length;

2) fully embracing the power and insiderhood he has won. Do you remember when you quoted Franklin Roosevelt, Mr. Obama? "I agree with you; now make me do it"? That's what pressure groups are for. That's what good, effective activism is. When our representatives don't represent us the way we want, we become their adversaries. We withhold our support. We go after them no matter what letter they have after their names.

Again, you are squandering one of America's best opportunities so far. You could be a transformational President. Part of that would include dismantling some of the power that your office has arrogated for itself ever since John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, through Thomas Jefferson making the Louisiana Purchase, to Abraham Lincoln preserving the Union rather than contain the supremacy of the federal government, to William McKinley conquering and creating the overseas Empire, to Franklin Roosevelt breaking the Supreme Court and the tradition of voluntarily giving up power, becoming President for life, to Richard Nixon asserting executive privilege, to Bill Clinton abandoning even the fig leaf of United Nations consensus to wage a war that Congress (again) never declared, to George Bush finally asserting that nothing, not even the Constitution, controls the power of the commander-in-chief.

Are you going to continue protecting the office you hold, and consequently all the criminals who used it before you, thus becoming criminal yourself? Or are you going to be the hope you appealed to?