Six Storylines for Obama to Worry About!

John F. Harris wrote the following article. I liked it and decided to put it on my blog.

"Presidential politics is about storytelling. Presented with a vivid storyline, voters naturally tend to fit every new event or piece of information into a picture that is already neatly framed in their minds. No one understands this better than Barack Obama and his team, who won the 2008 election in part because they were better storytellers than the opposition. A year into his presidency, however, Obama’s gift for controlling his image shows signs of faltering. As Washington returns to work from the Thanksgiving holiday, there are several anti-Obama storylines gaining momentum.

Here are six storylines Obama needs to worry about:
1) He thinks he’s playing with Monopoly money
He misjudged the anger in middle America about bailouts with weak and sporadic public explanations of why he believed they were necessary.
2) Too much Leonard Nimoy
People used to make fun of Bill Clinton’s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that, “I feel your pain.” Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened Obama to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. The Spock imagery has been especially strong during the extended review Obama has undertaken of Afghanistan policy. He’ll announce the results on Tuesday. The speech’s success will be judged not only on the logic of the presentation but on whether Obama communicates in a more visceral way what progress looks like and why it is worth achieving. No soldier wants to take a bullet in the name of nuance.
3)That’s the Chicago Way
This is a storyline that’s likely taken root more firmly in Washington than around the country. The rap is that his West Wing is dominated by brass-knuckled pols. The examples of Chicago-style politics include their delight in public battles with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The lesson that many Washington insiders have drawn is that Obama wants to buy off the people he can and bowl over those he can’t.
4) He’s a pushover
It seems a bit contradictory, to be sure. But it’s a perception that began when Obama several times laid down lines — then let people cross them with seeming impunity. He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe.
That line belonged to George H.W. Bush, excoriating Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988. It would be hugely unwelcome for Obama if the perception took root that he is comfortable with a relative decline in U.S. influence or position in the world. The reviews of Obama’s recent Asia trip were harsh. His peculiar bow to the emperor of Japan, and his lots-of-velvet, not-much-iron approach to China had substantive implications.
He wants to be President of the World than President of the United States, a critique that will be heard more in December as he stops in Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize.
5) President Pelosi
No figure in Obama’s Washington, including Obama, has had more success in advancing his will than the speaker of the House, despite public approval ratings that hover in the range of Dick Cheney’s. The great hazard for Obama is if Republicans or journalists conclude that Pelosi’s achievements are more impressive than Obama’s or come at his expense. Obama has allowed the speaker to become more nearly an equal — and far from a subordinate.
6) He’s in love with the man in the mirror
Does Obama have more than his share of self-regard? It’s a common theme of Washington buzz that Obama is over-exposed. He gives interviews on his sports obsessions to ESPN, cracks wise with Leno and Letterman, discusses his fitness with Men’s Health, discusses his marriage in a joint interview with first lady Michelle Obama for The New York Times. A photo the other day caught him leaving the White House clutching a copy of GQ featuring himself.

Obama’s best hope of nipping bad storylines is to replace them with good ones rooted in public perceptions of his effectiveness.