It did not come as a great surprise when the scales dropped from Peggy Noonan’s eyes and her ardor for the president swirled quietly away, but one would not have expected such a diminishment in Maureen Dowd’s affection. Yet even she has concluded that Barack Obama, “who was once a luminescent, inspiration force, is now just a guy in a really bad spot.” In her brutal weekend Op-Ed, Dowd concludes that “maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.” Republican 2012 speechwriters would do well to write that one down.

The New York Times columnist contends that Obama must know “[he is] in trouble” now that even “Harry Reid says [he] should be more aggresive,” but one could equally argue that the president must know that the game is up now that even the barometer of establishment opinion is lurking around the steps of the Senate, dressed in a toga and carrying a dagger. (James Carville appears to be among the band of assassins, too.)

Dowd’s piece employs many of the criticisms that the Right has made of Obama from the outset. Most notably, it echoes the notion that he is an empty suit, is obsessed with speech-making, and remains convinced that the sole role of the president is to make endless use of the bully pulpit. Dowd accuses Obama — who she sarcastically refers to as “The One” — of suffering from “Speech Illlusion,” which she defines as:

the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.