The Reasons Why

Paul Krugman's "pre-mortem." I've always argued that the most important thing about electing a president was to see who he would have as his advisors. Usually I've meant that in the sense that I expected the advisors to be smarter than the president. In Obama's case, he surrounded himself with people who weren't as smart and who were willing to settle for less than he promised. Why Obama let them convince him that less was good enough will remain a mystery.