Have these people losthope or something: "Protesters interrupted President Barack Obama at a campaign fund-raiser on Thursday to complain about the treatment in detention of a U.S. soldier accused of leaking documents that appeared on the WikiLeaks website," Reuters reports. Come on, don't mess up his fundraisers. How's he supposed to get the billion dollars necessary to run against some semi-random GOP nobody next year?

Every time we commit the Thought Crime around here of criticizing Barack Obama's policies, people remind us that he'll still have 94% or whatever amount of the Democrat/Liberal vote, so who cares what he actually does as president? This concept depresses us nearly as much as everything else going on, but we do have to admit the basic truth of it.

We remember all the liberals were upset with Clinton, with his "welfare reform" and the general corporate/defense policies we've come to expect from all presidents, regardless of affiliation, over the many decades. And yet Clinton -- with an assist from Perot, but still -- easily beat Bob Dole and Bob Dole didn't like that, the end.

But we also remember 1999, the Battle of Seattle, Ralph Nader and Pearl Jam selling out stadiums, WTOGTFO, all that stuff. The pre-9/11 world when labor union members and globalization protesters walked arm in arm, romantically through the streets of Seattle. We remember outrage and disgust about all the same things that are happening and accelerating today. And while it took an assist from the Republican Supreme Court to plant Bush Junior in the White House, that would've been impossible had Al Gore pulled off a solid win.

What presidents do as president actually has an impact not only on policy, but on the electorate. When might Barack Obama start "acting liberal" to motivate enough voters to get him over the edge? One true thing about Barry O is that he doesn't waste his energy, and it's probably equally true that he could do a lot of nothing between now and September 2012, and still roll out that massive machine at the last minute and make it all count.

Then again, the world is ending in December 2012, so it's not like he's going to serve another term. Nobody is serving anything, terms or otherwise, once the Cow Demon rises from the Bottomless Pit and snuffs out humankind with a billion clouds of hollow pain. [Reuters]