Yet the harshness of his Democratic critics – a third of the party base is calling for an alternative candidate – must be seen against the same people’s self-delusions when they backed him for President. There is something of the lover’s disappointment here. What the biggest crisis of American self-confidence since the Vietnam War is revealing is that Obama is the victim of absurdly unrealistic expectations. How could a President who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize months after taking office (ironic, given his subsequent enthusiasm for Taliban-zapping drones in Pakistani skies) live up to the hopes? Not even the youthful JFK was burdened with so much adulation. But then, the Nobel was more than a tribute to Obama’s manifest virtues, and his promise: it was a blessing of the colour of the presidential skin.