This is only my take - you won't find this in any news article, because intuition is the primary conduit here.
As observed in various comments Obama has made in front of the camera, including various speeches and formal statements he has made, I conclude that he is seriously out of balance. This is an energetic read, based not at all on his content.
His affect is inappropriate - he's smiling when he should be grave, he's shaky when he should be a rock. He feels dizzy and completely out of control, and he probably is. He has lost his thread - some bottom has fallen out.
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God help us.
You have been seeing him more than I, so you could have a better intuition than I. But that's not how I have reading this.
I heard some of his speech and I also heard the gruelling interrogation of BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward. And I see the same issue.
My take is that the underlying problem is that 'America' is facing a conflict of interest on a deep level. They can't handle that emotionally because to face it directly is still too traumatic. So they shoot the frustration to whatever scapegoat they can find.
What I am seeing is that popular US is traumatised by this - they don't want to give up their cars, esp their big cars, they don't want to pay more for petrol and they know they have been complicit in this disaster because of their avarice for cheap petrol - cheaper than any other nation on the globe I think.
But more than that, it is a confrontation between and awakening reality that the world they live in will not always do what they want. There is a very deep strain in American psychology of the 'can do', that 'we can overcome any obstacle', that 'where there's a will there's a way'. And this has in the minds of popular culture deteriorated into an astounding belief of the might of the military, and more importantly the gun. A simplistic belief in the gun over the mind.
It permeates US culture - you see it in the movies where intelligent heroes and especially intelligent female actors have always had a huge hurdle to clear for popular acceptance. You see in the love of Ronald Reagan and George W Bush - how they resorted to single line clichés to rousing popular acclaim.
This is not uncommon - you will see it in all empires in their hey days, as you now see it in China. A nation pride-belief that 'we can do anything'.
A series of blows to this conviction has hit the US in recent years. Vietnam was a very big blow, but they patched themselves back in the 90s, but then 9/11 which really confounded the public with it audacity, its efficiency and its horror. Iraq turned into a horrific embarrassment and the revulsion of the world towards the GWBush image of America. Then Afghanistan, but mostly the GFC which has left the US in an international pauper state along with the embarrassment of having initiated the whole thing.
Then the cyclone that wiped out one of the largest cities in the US and to which the incompetence of response was a huge shock to the 'can do' self-image. Blow after blow - you are seeing the decline of an empire, and it was as traumatic to the US as it was to Britain and every other empire. Not that the US empire will be going away any time soon, but every empire culture moves into a very new psychological self-image as it declines. A far more nuanced and complex self-image, plus I might say artistically creative.
But right now, Obama has the qualities of a careful thinker - one who wants to reflect before acting, and isn't afraid to weigh the complexities. These are characteristics of the phase that the US is moving into, but the resistance is mammoth.
There is no quick solution to this problem, and even Hayward doesn't have a magic wand, nor could he possibly have known anything about the drilling site before it exploded - he is the head of a vast multi-national company, and one little drill is as significant as an ant to an elephant. Until it blows up that is.
What is happening is that Americans are stewing in their confrontation with reality - that it is complex and that it needs competent handling, not soap-opera. Reality is calling, and it is bigger than anyone thought.
Hayward at least bears some culpability for a general un-preparedness, to which he admitted. But what the public want is emotionality. My take on the Obama 'mis-match' as you put it Niche, is that we are seeing a new paradigm of leadership that doesn't dance to the old tune. Americans are facing a shift in what it is to be 'American', and they have a man who is presenting the cues for that, but they don't like it. The dissonance runs too deep for familiar comfort.
However, what is important is not how he dances emotionally, but how competent he is. If he is successful, he will win through, and America will change. If he is unsuccessful, America will reel back to an old-time leader, which will serve to bring forward the demise of US empire faster than ever, as was seen with GWB.
The US is very lucky to have a leader who is neither Left nor Right. He does many things which outrages both sides. But will he succeed in getting sufficient runs on the board to gain respect before the next election? Grudging respect is in many ways the best kind of respect. We shall see, but he will need both luck and intelligence, and luck is a fickle partner.