No malaise, please

THE QUESTION is raised cautiously, perhaps over drinks at a bar or during a casual dinner among friends. The conversants are staunchly Democratic, and so to even raise the subject seems like disloyalty, but it is raised nonetheless: “So, how do you think Obama is doing?’’

To ask is to admit the answer to come. There are no rousing affirmations (“Great! He’s delivering just what he promised!’’). One word crops up most frequently: “Disappointing.’’

This has been a bad summer for Barack Obama. There is, of course, the vacation, a 10-day respite to the moneyed enclaves of Martha’s Vineyard. Democrats can dutifully recite the talking points: Obama has taken just 61 days of vacation, while after the same time in office George W. Bush had spent 180 days away from the White House, Ronald Reagan 112. On the other hand, Bill Clinton - in retrospect, his terms were the Democrats’ glory days - had taken but 28. And no one doubts that had Clinton been in office while the economy was tanking, the stock market collapsing, and more than 9 percent of Americans were failing to secure work, he would have understood the theatrics of it all and stayed at home. Or at least he wouldn’t have gone to the Vineyard.