Suddenly, liberal op-ed writers are trashing -- even lampooning -- Barack Obamaas a one-term president ("one and done"). Centrist Democrats up for re-election in 2012 openly worry about inviting a kindred president into their districts, lest the supposed new pariah lose them votes.
Left-wing think tanks, environmentalists and academics vent their anger against Obama for supposedly being too soft on Republicans, and too ready to compromise with right-wingers. But what really caused the left-wing falling-out, less than three years after the hope-and-change crush on Barack Obama?
For now, polls.
Obama's popularity has plummeted to little more than 40 percent approval. Suddenly, Democrats worry that the public anger could be contagious. It might infect them as well -- in the way a sinking George W. Bush hurt congressional Republicans up for re-election in 2006.
Yet the left cannot fairly blame Obama. After all, he rammed through on a strictly partisan vote the century-old liberal dream of a federal takeover of health care -- something that Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton never could do. Keynesians never dreamed that a president could actually borrow $5 trillion for domestic spending in less than three years.
