Leadership means facing down challenges and imposing your will on the values of a country.

Imposition smacks of dictatorship to me.

In order to be a leader, Obama has to have a government willing and able to be led. This he does not and never will have because Congress and Senate are with a couple of honourable exceptions bought and paid for.

Having said that, with his powers of rhetoric, he could appeal directly to the people, but only if he has a narrative capable of stimulating them to force the politicians to follow him. Such a narrative still evades him.

ThatBritGuy:

He's dithered about financial reform, he's dithered about health care, he's dithered about the morality of wiretapping and torture. He could have transformed the US with an epic green revolution, reined in the finance industry, ended a pointless war, and restored pre-Bush moral values.

I agree that he could and should have acted in relation to wire-tapping and torture and begun to roll back the Bush era moral values. But in all other areas he is entirely a prisoner of the financial system, and only the conclusive final discrediting of the system - which I believe will not be long in coming - can release him from those shackles.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson