OBAMA VULNERABLE? - AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  We've said here that some of the best commentary about American politics comes from British writers.  And one of the best of the British writers is Janet Daley of The Telegraph, who writes of Barack Obama's sudden vulnerability:

The President's recent display of liberalism – and confusion – can only help the opposition, says Janet Daley.

The Republicans now believe they have a grip on what Barack Obama is about. At least for this week. The grip is subject to reappraisal because Mr Obama has developed a gift for reinventing himself with remarkable alacrity. One very senior commentator on the Right said to me, "First we had Candidate Obama, who was a liberal [ie Left wing]. Then we had President-Elect Obama, who was post-partisan and centrist. Now we have President Obama, who has reverted to being ultraliberal."

The question of who Mr Obama really is, and what he truly believes, underlies the growing list of Very Odd Things that seem to be happening under his administration. Among the most perplexing of these mysteries is why, when he went to such pains to assemble a huge and widely experienced team of White House economic advisers (even going to the lengths of parading them at a press conference before he took office) he then handed over the actual drafting of his economic policy to the old Democratic fixers in Congress.

COMMENT:  Spot on.  Read the whole piece, which is very incisive.  The British press has grown increasingly skeptical of Obama, especially since the president's awkward handling of the visit by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  We're getting a better critique from Britain than we're getting from much of our own press.

March 16, 2009