Douthat to White House: Buck Up

Conservative columnist Ross Douthat gives some unexpected advice to the Obama White House in his New York Times blog.

If you believe in Barack Obama’s agenda (as, presumably, most of the people working for him do), then you have no business giving up on Rushmore now: His presidency could still have over six more years to run, and he’s already achieved the public policy dream of a generation’s worth of liberals! There have been dark, depressing times to serve in a White House (the last year or so of the Bush administration, to pick a recent example). But the midterms and Tea Partiers notwithstanding, the 22nd month of the Obama era really shouldn’t be one of them — unless, of course, you came into the job with such unreasonable expectations that anything short of a perpetual inauguration-style lovefest would have disappointed you.

--Ballard Burgher