Stop Waiting for Obama to Save You

Earlier this week, Atlantic columnist Mark Leibovich wrote a buzzy piece critical of Barack Obama, suggesting the former president had succumbed to the "fierce lethargy of semi-retirement" as the world burned. "Where Is Barack Obama?" asked the headline of the piece. In response, New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom suggests that Leibovich and others clamoring for the former president to "don his cape" are guilty of "Obama derangement syndrome." Obama governed as a cautious moderate, writes McMillan Cottom, and is hardly a superhero.

• "Begging Obama to save us is undignified. It reeks of weakness, and it begets more weakness. The answer will not come from above. Congressional Democrats are not effectively reflecting voters' anger and despondency. Their 'we are the minority party' defense is already wearing thin. But the real vacuum is not in Congress or in the White House. It is in the streets."
• In short, she writes, "we must start asking how we can save ourselves." (Read the full column.)