You know that President Obama is swimming up stream when Maureen Dowd writes this: "The president looked exhausted as he met the press in St. Petersburg on Friday. The man elected because of his magical powers of persuasion had failed to persuade other world leaders at dinner the night before about a strike on Syria.     He said he had told his fellow leaders, "I was elected to end wars and not start them."   But in life, and especially in Washington, people sometimes end up becoming what they start out scorning." Isn't that the truth?  How did we get here?  How did we go from the "dreamy" Obama of the campaign to the exhausted man of today? In 2007-08, candidate Obama was given a free pass on issue after issue by people like Maureen Dowd. They were so eager to replace Bush that they hitched their wagon to the biggest anti-Bush of all. He was going to close Guantanamo but nobody in the press asked:  "Where are you going...(Read Full Post)