Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios and the long legislative battles over health care reform financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.
Christmas can have a real melancholy aspect 'cause it packages itself as this idea of perfect family cohesion and love and you're always going to come up short when you measure your personal life against the idealized personal lives that are constantly thrust in our faces primarily by TV commercials.