MORT ZUCKERMAN: Obama Is Barely Treading Water. “There is a widespread feeling that the government doesn’t work, that it is incapable of solving America’s problems. Americans are fed up with Washington, fed up with Wall Street, fed up with the necessary but ill-conceived stimulus program, fed up with the misdirected healthcare program, and with pretty much everything else. They are outraged and feel that the system is not a level playing field, but is tilted against them. The millions of unemployed feel abandoned by the president, by the Democratic Congress, and by the Republicans. The American people wanted change, and who could blame them? But now there is no change they can believe in.”

Jeez, not long ago Zuckerman was writing Obama’s speeches, now he’s writing his political obituary. Dan Riehl notes that he shoulda thought things through sooner.

UPDATE: A reader who works in Human Resources and requests anonymity writes:

I would be hysterical, if it wasn’t so sad and frightening, that all of these supposedly intelligent, perceptive, savvy CEOs, e.g. Mort Zuckerman, have come to the conclusion that the President has no demonstrated competency in leadership or execution.

If in my role as the HR guy at their respective organizations I had presented the President for an executive position which required managing for any sort of productive, value added outcome I suspect I would have been told to clean out my office.
Some jobs require you to DO more than talk.

It does seem that the President was inadequately vetted pre-election. So we’re doing the vetting now, instead, which is somewhat more expensive.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Stephen Clark writes:

“The Democratic party is the vehicle through which, after a populist interlude, the governing classes are proposing to take their country back. Obama is a restoration candidate but that doesn’t mean he has a plan. “ So wrote Christopher Caldwell in the last two sentences of his piece in The Spectator dated 29 October, 2008, Describing Obama as the restoration candidate for the governing classes may well capture a large part of the motivation behind a whole swath of people like Zuckerman.

Zuckerman, Bloomberg, and a very long list probably understood that Obama did not have enough experience. So much the better! Naturally, Obama would turn to the likes of them to help manage the country; except, it doesn’t look as if Obama and the people around him feel a great need for their help. If there is any shock to poor Mort, it’s that Obama, if only out of a sense of self-preservation, hasn’t recognized his need for the likes of him.

I would say that not listening to them is a mark in Obama’s favor, but the results suggest he should have taken any help he could get . . . .