At a time when the United States and the World needed a leader we got Obama. He has demonstrated few if any leadership qualities because he can’t or won’t. While he talks the talk he can’t be confrontational – at a time when there are many great challenges a leader needs to be confrontational. While it was the status quo that got us into the mess we are in now those who benefit from the status quo obviously want to maintain it. Obama promised change but any real changes will require confrontation.

The catastrophe in the Gulf is the latest example of a lack of leadership but the list is long. Greg Sargent:

As I noted this morning, there’s been a palpable shift in the tone of media coverage of Obama’s handling of the Gulf spill, with newly-aggressive news orgs raising more questions about whether the admistration has ceded too much control to BP.

The White House is very sensitive about this line of criticism, which is why Obama advisers release a daily fusillade of fact cheets, photos of Obama in action, and other such materials designed to show that he’s on top of the crisis.

But it seems to me there’s another solution to this perception problem. Maybe Obama should take an additional path of decisive action that clearly is an option right now, which is to use the crisis to rally the public towards real energy reform.

It has already been pointed out a million times that he’s failed to use the spill to meaningfully rally the public behind the Senate’s climate change efforts. What needs to be added is that doing this — in addition to helping the planet — could help solve his current political problem, which is that questions are mounting about his response to this crisis in particular.

And then there was Obama’s alleged victory – the HCR bill. This was a Republican bill that no Republicans voted for because they didn’t want Obama to have what was perceived to be a victory. With a little leadership from Obama it could have been so much more. Congressional Democrats won’t go out on a limb unless they know the Democratic President has their back. A complete failure of leadership.

And then we have Wall Street and the pathetic financial reform bill that didn’t address the very issues that resulted in the recession that may yet turn into a depression. There should be no surprise here – Obama’s economic team is made up of Wall Street insiders – the very same people who have their fingerprints all over the economic crisis.

We needed a leader and we got Obama.  He may win a second term but only because the Republicans are likely to nominate someone who is crazy.