Not that that means it never happened, and your basic point is valid. It is telling that Obamas abandoned campaign pledges offend his partisan foes more than they do his erstwhile supporters. It is a little surreal to see Lamar Alexander insisting individual citizens receive GM stock as part of the bailout while people call Obama a "socialist." I know socialists; socialists are friends of mine: Obama is no socialist.

Still, trzaskas basic point is valid, too, whatever his motives. Those of us who voted for Obama in the faint hope of an outsider young enough to retain the idealism necessary to fundamentally change a badly broken system have been cruelly disappointed. Perhaps his greatest sin is disillusioning a generation of Americans and providing Republicans with ample evidence government is incapable of anything constructive. Democrats finally achieved their perennial Great White Hope of young liberals turning out in droves to elect a leader with genuinely liberal policies, only to witness the dream deferred by a candidate who campaigned as FDR but governed as Bush 43. This generation of Americans also had a rendezvous with destiny, but their leader took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.