Feel like a chump nowadays? Mark Morford’s disappointment is better than yours:

My God, did you hear that pathetic State of the Union? That guy, that President Obama? Disappointing times a thousand, am I right? What the hell happened to him? Why is he so weak and ineffectual? Why the hell can’t he step up and fix the entire planet in under 400 days like he promised he would, in my dreams and fantasies and impossible liberal grass-fed organic tofu greengasms? Doesn’t he know I put a goddamn bumper sticker on my Subaru for him? I’ve never done that for anyone. Bastard.

Heartbreaking.

Like all wit, Morford’s sarcasm also bears a deeper truth: weren’t we just itching to be disappointed all along? Secretly, we’re wishing that the bucket of pig’s blood will rain down on the prom queen. That’s why we put the bucket up there. That’s the whole point of having a prom queen. The only thing Americans like better than a success story is ruining it.

Morford continues,

He’s only accomplished what, about 100 of the things I expected him to accomplish by now? Big deal. I have, like, 5,000 more. Health care reform has failed. Guantanamo is still open. Wars are still warring. Jobs are still sucking. Gays are still unhappy because the entire human understanding of love and gender in this nation has not completely transformed within a year. Infuriating!

But the biggest disappointment of all? Turns out one calm n’ brilliant Barack Obama isn’t enough to solve the problem of 535 vile n’ slothful congressional jackals who aren’t Barack Obama. Go figure.

Yet the President has dutifully provided the single most valuable commodity in our public conversation: Disappointment. Without a regular supply of that, we’d jeopardize our whole finger-pointing, overreacting, harrumphing, way of public life. We are a nation hoping that our food will arrive cold so that we may browbeat the under-paid waiter — because we aren’t here for the food, damn it, we’re here for the glorious opportunity to feel justifiably indignant for an hour.

So, whether you’re a disillusioned lefty or a disgusted righty, remember to thank President Obama for the vigor he has surely managed to put back into your fetching sneer.

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