Actually most voters would like single payer universal healthcare but this is the one option that is being kept off the table. It may cost less and be more workable but insurance companies, the medical industry, and Big Pharma refuse to relinguish their stranglehold on American healthcare and politicians.

For the rest, I stopped supporting Obama back in July 2008 when he reneged on his pledge to filibuster the FISA Amendments Act which retroactively immunized telecoms for participating in domestic spying programs under Bush and which legalized a lot of the rationales for ongoing spying of this kind. Still I deliberated a long time before starting a scandals list on him. It currently has some 60 items although I have not yet decided where to put it on the net. In comparison, I did a Bush scandals list which is on the net and had 400 entries. But so far Obama has been amazingly consistent. He gives a good speech. He proposes weak legislation representing a whole tradition of failed ideas (from the Bush and Clinton Administrations) and in Congress this is further diluted to the legislative equivalent of weak gruel. When he does act decisively as with bailing out the financial industry without fixing or reforming it, it is the most wrongheaded decision imaginable. He is by no means as bad as Bush, at least not yet, but he is still pretty awful.

While the solutions to our current woes require bold action and the necessary stepping on powerful toes, President Obama navigates the middle ground with one dominant feature: do not chip away at the power of the special interests groups in any meaningful way.

Bought and paid for, like Congress.

Almost all of the legislation that Obama has supported since becoming President has been an exercise in consolidating power, both political and financial, rather than accomplishing any particular goal. Once viewed through this prism, it is easy to explain why all of the bills are flawed — they use a pretext to accomplish the goal of consolidating power, instead of their stated goals.

A better article would be: "Obama chooses to act in his own self-interest rather than that of the country."

I enjoyed Mr. Clark's article, articulate and interesting on Obama's political style as well as accurate, until the statement on Obama's choice of advisers that stands out as a gratuitous bit of right wing political propaganda and the real point of the article:

"… Mr Obama has impeccable taste in advisers: he has scooped up many of the country’s pre-eminent experts in almost every area of public policy."

Does 'almost' and 'many' as in 'many of the country’s pre-eminent experts in almost every area' exonerate Mr. Clark and FT?

Mr. Clark strikes the perfect balance for the right wing position in praise of the corporate finance guys in charge of the American oligopoly while damning Obama, its titular head.

"Damning" is the right word. The previous administration squandered laws and rights purchased in blood during some of the most expensive crises this world has known (eg, the Geneva Conventions). Although this administration has a crisis to work from, it has shown no interest in putting it to good use at the expense of alienating the oligarchy. It's status quo for us all, as that status quo slides inevitably into poverty and desperation.