Recommended: Excuses for Obama's Failure to Lead

Charles Krauthammer has an interesting piece in today's Washington Post entitled Excuses for Obama's Failure to Lead.
In it he argues that the federal system is in fact operating as it should, and the Senate in particular is operating to prevent legislation that is too far left for the country, just as it has in previous administrations blocked legislation that is too far right for the voters. Krauthammer argues that the current problems are not rooted in the system, but rather in President Obama's failure to lead effectively.

I certainly have the feeling that President Obama is better at campaigning than at governing. He makes great speeches, and says all the right things, but in fact when it comes to governing he seems to have outsourced most legislative details to Congress, with little White House guidance and no visible attempts to forge working coalitions across ideologies or party lines. The problem may be that, good as he is on the campaign trail, he simply lacks any experience governing. In that respect, former governors seem to make better presidents, because they have actually had to balance a budget and manage a legislative body before they got to the presidency, something entirely foreign to President Obama before he took office.