Herbert on Obama

Bob Herbert, because he writes for the New York Times, may be the most prominent African-American political columnist in the country. He has said good things about Obama, but is starting to have some doubts.

Mr. Obama may be personally very appealing, but he has positioned himself all over the political map: the anti-Iraq war candidate who escalated the war in Afghanistan; the opponent of health insurance mandates who made a mandate to buy insurance the centerpiece of his plan; the president who stocked his administration with Wall Street insiders and went to the mat for the banks and big corporations, but who is now trying to present himself as a born-again populist.