How to be Obama

Some people are getting very hot at Barack Obama. He has seized the bully pulpit. He lectures, he hectors, he talks like a schoolteacher, they say. Some even chide him for futzing around in DC when the whole country is in a vice-like grip of a severe recession. The President and his wife, Michelle, are only trying to bond with a new community, Obama���s advisers say.

He���s trying, being the first black US President, to bring two Washingtons ��� black and white ��� together. Perhaps people expect Obama to stay at home, within the borders of the White House, and sit ponderously. They want him to think hard about a recovery. They want him to dispel the gloom. They don���t want him at basketball matches cheering Chicago Bulls. No hooting, no hollering. They want him in a huddle at the White House.

Obama must be a confused man and the winsome smile, which he used effectively on the stump, has disappeared. Out he comes to the press conference, his face tight and grim. For a full hour he keeps it the same way, projecting to America a mien as deeply hurt as the country itself. The next day, perhaps, he goes to lunch at a street-corner hot-dog joint. He smiles, waves and cheers.

Before he gets back to the White House, they start taking a few potshots at him. He should be bothered about banks, bonuses and bonds, not hot dogs. National appetites have changed, how can the President remain a gourmand. The only dish that should be at his table in these dire times is the innards of a fast gutting economy. All this must be putting Obama under severe strain.

A face for Monday, a face for Tuesday, the President must surely be learning how to face down his adversaries. Obama should not be cheery one day and churlish the next: he should just be. He should remember the unclenched fist metaphor he used at his inaugural. Just substitute fist for face and that would be it. Yes he can, it isn���t that difficult.