"I believe in America".

This phrase just sounds so great, so hopeful. During the Bush years it felt as if America was buried. The palpable rage that spread throughout most of Europe after his reelection in 2004 was depressing and discomforting. The best headlines that I can remember were "how can 52,000,000 people be so dumb" and "And now..... 4 more years". Then came BHO; this seemingly charasmatic, charming and competent man with great teeth and a telegenic family emerged - we all wanted to forget this nightmare of the Bush Administration and quick. "Its great that we have the ability to reboot" said Bill Maher on his show the next week. Alas, Bush has done much damage, and it wont all go away - the emergence of the Tea Party movement and its "populism on crack" fervour has now swept its first darling into Congress.

Oh Massachussetts! Not this state - that gave us the Kennedys, that legalised gay marriage, that has one of the largest Democratic majorities in the State legislature has now decided to turn its back on Obama and his promises that rendered him LBJ-like majorities only 14 months ago.

Much has disapated. It always does. This is not unusual, a President also loses his shine during his Presidency. However, there is not much to see that distinguishes Obama from that great Centrist Bill Clinton. He has chosen not to lurch quickly and deftly in a new direction - eschewing the Wall Street allure. No, he chose to ingratiate himself with the Business community who firstly presided over a period of great economic zealotry with garish arrogance and disrespect and now see themselves as net beneficiaries. Has his chance gone? Has he wasted his time? Health care, Iraq, EFCA, climate change, Afghanistan, civil liberties - the Americans voted for a pariah and they got a bureaucrat intellectual who seems greatly risk-averse, conflict shy and scared.

The Republicans extremely narrow, dubious, cruel and selfish tactic of blocking any reform seems to be working. Instead of the President trying to bully his Congress and shape it in his fashion, has let factions emerge, empowered single Senators, and let the narrative stray. Who presided over this decline? Obama or Bush? Who bailed out the Banks in the first place? Obama or Bush? Who started two wars and ruined the state finances? Obama or Bush? For all his media savvy and relentless exposure he has failed to develop a coherent counter-narrative to his opponents.

I hope this is but a blip, a mere wake up call. But today I remain pessimistic. He took too long and had the bad luck that Ted Kennedy died before he could pass the bill. Yet that is life, and that is politics. Anyone with 250 seats in the House and 60 in the Senate should get his legislation passed. 1994 again? Will we have a new quasi-Gingrich revolution with a Congress full of lunatics for a decade? Will Obama be doomed to a single term and further empower the Right and give away a chance in a generation? I dont hope so, few outside of Europe don't want him to fail. Maybe its too early, the first year is always a challenge, but it is certain Obama is not a caste iron liberal that I hoped he could be.

Oh that emotion called optimism and that thing called projection. I fell victim to it, and so did many others. I think Obama will not sleep well tonight and will be cursing along with Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod - it will be a good read when his memoirs come out. Whether in 4 or 8 years we shall see.

Do I believe in America? I think my personal trajectory is strongly linked to the fate of Obama's agenda. Wait until November and we shall see if he has wised up and starts facing up to the Conservatives or continues his path of appeasal and naive strategy of bipartisanship. Time to see what his true calibre is.