Obama’s task has been easier. He needs only to ride a historical current instead of fighting it. And this plays to his greatest political strength: the easy, laid-back self-assurance of a 1940s crooner. During the financial crisis Obama has contributed nothing of note or consequence. His only recent accomplishment has been to say questionable things in the debates — attacking Republicans and capitalism for a credit meltdown that congressional Democrats helped to cause, blaming America for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, talking piously about genocide prevention when his own early Iraq policies might have resulted in genocide — all while sounding supremely reassuring and presidential.