Barry's Baaaaaack, But Are We Satisfied?

Fiiiiinally... the fiery President Obama of old came roaring back with a killer jobs speech this week. "What a relief," sighs Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. "The president was strong and House Republicans were conciliatory." But it's not that simple, she says, because at heart Republicans are "revolutionary Bolsheviks who want to eat Obama alive." Even scarier, we're learning that Obama must "always must be chided and cajoled before he gets re-engaged"—even during an economic crisis.

"He’s eternally the gifted and sometimes indolent student who has to be wooed and pressured into making the game-winning shot," writes Dowd. "As one aide joked, 'We work 6 to 9 and he works 9 to 6.'" And whenever "Obama goes through a period of lying doggo," opponents like Rick Perry "get an infusion of oxygen." What does this all mean for the country? "It’s still impossible to sum up what Obama’s presidency is about right now, except saving his own job." (More President Obama stories.)