Lack of leadership on Fed chairman, Syria show Obama has lost his way
Kevin Rafferty says the US president has been all talk and no action on foreign policy
US President Barack Obama, who came to office on a wave of enthusiasm and energy - promising a 21st-century vision of a rapidly changing world - has hit the hard brick wall of realpolitik and his own limitations.
He behaves as if he is lost: not merely has his vision disappeared in the fog of war, but he has little clue where he is going, and neither the American system nor his fellow Americans are helping him.
This was seen this week as Professor Larry Summers, Obama's candidate to take over from Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, was ignominiously forced to withdraw, and Obama clearly reluctantly accepted that decision.
Opposition to Summers had been brewing for months in Obama's own Democratic Party and among left-wing critics hostile to Summers for his closeness to Wall Street and the so-called big "banksters".
Obama is president and must lead from the high ground [but] has failed to do so
The president has had months to think about the job and yet pointedly refused to make a choice when he might have guided the debate and pre-empted criticism. It was only after newspaper reports that Obama was about to nominate Summers - which provoked a hostile reaction in the markets - that Summers withdrew.