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A year later, hope dissolves into disappointment

Published: Sunday, January 17, 2010
By Pauline Arrillaga
AP National Writer



A year ago, on an Inauguration Day like no other, Barack Obama placed his hand upon the Lincoln Bible and then assured a weary nation that, with hope and virtue, we could "brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come."

Across the country, in Seattle, Glen Boyd had only just entered his own economic storm. A couple of weeks out of work as a DIRECTV salesman, the Obama supporter nevertheless watched the inauguration on TV with a kind of goose-pimply, things-are-bound-to-get-better anticipation. He really felt it, that thing which the poet Alexander Pope said springs eternal.

"I felt a tremendous sense of pride. I felt like he was the right guy. I felt a sense of optimism," recalls Boyd.

Now, a year later, Boyd writes this in his blog: "We believed what the man said in all those 'yes, we can' speeches. My one question is, where are all those reassuring speeches now?"

"To say I'm disappointed by the Obama presidency thus far would be an understatement."

Forget "can," "change" and, above all, "hope." The new word echoing in the blogosphere and beyond as Obama enters Year Two: disappointment.

The polls have shown a wide decline in Americans' approval of Obama since he first took office last Jan. 20. In fact, according to the latest Gallup Poll, he entered his second year with one of the lowest approval ratings of any president in the last half-century (50 percent of Americans approved of his job performance at the first of January, and 44 percent disapproved.)

John Connelly, a registered Republican who describes himself as an archconservative, feels no disappointment because he never placed any hope in Obama's presidency in the first place. "I knew what was coming even before he was elected," says the 68-year-old retired attorney who lives in Carolina Shores, N.C.

Rather, some of the truest Obama believers are among the most letdown.

More . . .

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This is front page news (with the above picture) in a popular Sunday Newspaper in the outskirts of Boston today.  (i.e., in the printed newspaper).  The same newspaper also serves Pottstown PA and tri-county areas.  The article is authored by AP National Writer, so the article is probably on many newspapers.


-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 17th of January 2010 11:31:07 AM