But maybe the most problematic aspect of Obama's statement is that it seems to reveal him as the same starry-eyed community organizer he was when he came in. After all he's been through -- the obstructionism, the big-ticket failures (such as climate-change legislation), the breaches of faith -- he still seems to believe that Washington is susceptible to the wishes of the people at large. He seems to think it is not, in fact, so irredeemably gridlocked and calcified that no amount of popular will can shake it. The debt-ceiling fight in particular seemed to have disabused Obama of the illusion that politicians of good faith, acting in their own self-interest and that of their constituents, would naturally come together to resolve urgent problems. That the negotiations instead disintegrated into such a messy debacle seemed to have taught Obama a harsh lesson: You can't win in Washington without rolling up your sleeves and getting down in the mud.

You often hear Democrats pining for an Obama more in the mold of LBJ -- a horse-trading legislative master who got things done by hook or by crook, the opposite of the aloof Obama. Ugly as it is, this line of thinking goes, you have to play the inside game. Remaining above the fray, as Obama tends to do, just doesn't work. This is one of Romney's strongest arguments -- that rather than making excuses about the other side not being willing to work with him, he'll find ways to bring Republicans and Democrats together and get things done. Unfortunately for Romney, he doesn't propose any concrete ways of doing that, and his track record in Massachusetts, where legislators recall him as removed from the process, doesn't lend the idea much credence.

As Obama prepared to speak at the Democratic National Convention a couple of weeks ago, the New York Times' Jodi Kantor tweeted this:

In this speech, I wish Obama would answer my foremost question about his presidency: What has he learned? — jodikantor (@jodikantor) September 7, 2012

Her wish went unfulfilled. It was, once you noticed it, a stunning omission. Obama jokes about his gray hairs and talks frankly about the waning of the promise he once represented: Eight years after he first trumpeted a message of hope, he said in his speech, "that hope has been tested by the cost of war, by one of the worst economic crises in history and by political gridlock that's left us wondering whether it's still even possible to tackle the challenges of our time." But he doesn't talk about how the job has changed him. And if he still believes that Washington can be persuaded to enact his agenda through mass mobilization, continuing to ignore the inside game, maybe it hasn't. If he wins a second term, we'll find out whether he's right.

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