For his first four years, after all, Obama did in fact do his best (his necessarily imperfect best—the guy’s only human) to walk the liberal walk. However, given the unique structural peculiarities of our political and governmental system… and given the unprecedented willingness of Republican extremists to exploit those peculiarities in order to thwart the wishes of popular majorities, walking the walk is like jogging in quicksand. You can hobble the hobble. You can limp the limp. You can stagger the stagger. But walking the walk is, shall we say, a challenge.

Hendrik Hertzberg on Obama’s inaugural speech, “a step in the right, I mean left, direction”: http://nyr.kr/118Avjh

(Source: newyorker.com)