Noemie Emery: Obama's schools of hard knocks

“It is not easy being Obama,” said E.J. Dionne recently, a dubious statement if ever there was one, and one that seems rather untrue. Being Obama is sometimes too easy, with the Dionnes of the world ready and eager to make his excuses.

It’s making excuses that’s hard, and listening to them can be even harder, and at times a mind-bending experience. As Dionne proclaims, he’s “an anti-ideological leader in an ideological age, a middle-of-the-road liberal skeptical of the demands placed on a movement leader” who wants only to ask us to “reason together.”