Obama Fatigue

After five months in office, his whirlwind presidency is taking a toll on the President in more ways than one.

Worrying about the economy "keeps me awake at night," he told an interviewer yesterday.

At the same time, signs of Obama Fatigue are showing up among his own party in Congress over the massive muddle of health care reform. His tireless cheer-leading has failed to paper over Democratic differences and delayed markup this week of competing bills to expand coverage and rein in out-of-control costs.

In what could be a Summer of Discontent, worries by and over a President who, depending on critics' politics, has too much on his plate or is overreaching keep surfacing daily.

"I am concerned," he admitted yesterday, "about our long-term debt because if we don't get a handle on that then there's no doubt that at some point whether it's the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, whoever else has been snatching up Treasuries are going to decide that this is too much of a risk."

Meanwhile, as he prepares to announce a new plan for regulating the financial system, there are reports of in-fighting among the regulators even after efforts to achieve a broad consensus outside the White House.

At the rate that Barack Obama is spending his mandate, even his most ardent admirers will soon need time to catch their breaths for the marathon of Change in the three and a half years ahead. The headwinds are getting stronger.