Obama’s Halfway House

By ROGER COHEN
NYT

NEW YORK — I had very high hopes for Barack Obama. I still do. He’s smart, curious, informed — and he has a sense of humor, if only he’d display it more. But he inherited a nation in a funk and, one year into his presidency, he’s not found a way to lift the mood. Americans feel mired.

At a fundamental level, that funk is about a power shift. The United States is not what it was. It got attacked and the response has proved draining in blood and treasure. Anger accumulated, frustrations and debt grew. America’s 20th-century role is unraveling, albeit slowly, but its 21st-century role is not yet born.

Like it or not, we are witnessing the relative decline of the West. It’s going to be a long, slow movie but I don’t think the plot is going to reverse itself.

This transition prompts a couple of reactions. One is “To heck with the world.” Many Republicans (and Sarah Palin comes to mind) are in this my-way-or-the-highway place. The other is: Let’s adjust to the new reality through outreach and a new modesty. Obama is somewhere in that zone.

(More here.)