The left has a hopeandchange hangover

Is Obama running out of Kool Aid?

When President Barack Obama speaks to the Notre Dame commencement Sunday afternoon, television cameras will search the sea of graduates, looking for turned backs and defaced mortar boards that abortion opponents will likely use to register their disagreement with the president.

But the attention to protests from conservatives who don’t support Obama – and almost certainly never would – could obscure the far more significant political threat he now faces.

Barely four months into his presidency, Obama is confronting growing dissatisfaction among members of his liberal base, who feel spurned by a series of his early decisions on issues ranging from guns to torture to immigration to gay rights.

The list got longer last week as Obama reversed his earlier decision to release photos of detainees abused in U.S. military custody and announced plans to try some terror suspects before military commissions – though on the campaign trail he railed against earlier versions of the tribunals.

A few, like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, have even hurled the left’s ultimate epithet – suggesting that Obama’s turning into George W. Bush.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t make it up to them with his SCOTUS pick.