Dreaming of a Superhero - NYTimes.com ON Friday night, the nation's capital was under a tornado watch. And that was the best thing that happened to the White House all week. As the president was being slapped by Mitt Romney for being too weak on national security, he was being rapped by a Times editorial for being too aggressive on national security. A Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane revealed that the liberal law professor who campaigned against torture and the Iraq war now personally makes the final decisions on the "kill list," targets for drone strikes. "A unilateral campaign of death is untenable," the editorial asserted. On Thursday, Bill Clinton once more telegraphed that he considers Obama a lightweight who should not have bested his wife. Bluntly contradicting the Obama campaign theme that Romney is a heartless corporate raider, Clinton told CNN that the Republican's record at Bain was "sterling." Covering a humorous W. at the unveiling of his portrait, the White House press actually seemed nostalgic for the president who bollixed up Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina and the economy - a sure sign that the Obama magic is flagging. On Friday, an ugly job market report led to the stock market's worst day of the year. As the recovery flat-lined, the president conceded to a crowd at a Honeywell factory in Golden Valley, Minn., that "our economy is still facing some serious headwinds" and getting sucked further into Europe's sinkhole. In depressing imagery for the start of the summer campaign, cable channels carried the red Dow arrow pointing down while Obama spoke; the Dow wiped out all of its 2012 gains. The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters. His campaign is offering Obama 2012 car magnets for a donation of $10; cat collars reading "I Meow for Michelle" for $12; an Obama grill spatula for $40, and discounted hoodies and T-shirts. How the mighty have fallen. Once glowing, his press is now burning. "To a very real degree, 2008"s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012"s candidate of fear," John Heilemann wrote in New York magazine, noting that because Obama feels he can't run on his record, his campaign will resort to nuking Romney. In his new book, "A Nation of Wusses," the Democrat Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, wonders how "the best communicator in campaign history" lost his touch. The legendary speaker who drew campaign crowds in the tens of thousands and inspired a dispirited nation ended up nonchalantly delegating to a pork-happy Congress, disdaining the bully pulpit, neglecting to do any L.B.J.-style grunt work with Congress and the American public, and ceding control of his narrative. As president, Obama has never felt the need to explain or sell his signature pieces of legislation - the stimulus and health care bills - or stanch the flow of false information from the other side. "The administration lost the communications war with disastrous consequences that played out on Election Day 2010," Rendell writes, and Obama never got credit for the two pieces of legislation where he reached for greatness. The president had lofty dreams of playing the great convener and conciliator. But at a fund-raiser in Minneapolis, he admitted he's just another combatant in a capital full of Hatfields and McCoys. No compromises, just nihilism. If he wins the election, "the fever may break," he said. My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn't make much sense because I'm not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again. In his new biography, "Barack Obama: The Story," David Maraniss writes that a roommate of the young Obama compared him to Walker Percy's protagonist in "The Moviegoer": an observer of his life, one step removed.