I could be wrong, but I have the feeling President Obama has been sucked into a massive diversion with the oil spill. There’s not much he can do about it, and I’m guessing most people actually don’t care about it as much as they say. Yes, they feel sorry for the poor people in the Gulf and they disapprove of the government response, but at the end of the day the spill still doesn’t directly affect their lives. This probably accounts for the disconnect between all the sky-is-falling punditry about the crisis in Obama’s leadership and his basically steady poll numbers. But Obama has let himself get pushed around by the media and the left, which are obsessed with the story. So, first he shows his “kick ass” anger, then gives a prime-time speech that can’t possibly fulfill his supporters’ expectations because their expectations are so unreasonable. What is he going to say that’s going to make this situation any better? How specific can he be about our post-oil future, given how airy it is? How concrete can he be about energy legislation, when he doesn’t have the votes for cap-and-trade? I can’t help feeling we’re seeing a psychodrama involving the Left’s “tragedy of disappointment” with Obama play out in real time on MSNBC and the op-ed pages of the New York Times. It’s all a little childish, but it’s not as though Obama didn’t spend a couple of years feeding the grandeur of their delusions.