Being at the Telluride Film Festival caused me to miss a 9.3 Maureen Dowd N.Y. Times column that openly asked if President Obama is doomed, primarily due to the wimp factor. In ’09 and ’10 many worried that Obama was becoming Jimmy Carter. I think he’s now surpassed that feeling of late ’70s Carter enervation. There’s just a general sense that Obama can’t man up about anything, particularly regarding the Republicans.

“There’s nothing the Republicans say that [Obama] won’t eagerly meet halfway,” Dowd wrote.

“No. 2 on David Letterman‘s Top Ten List of the president’s plans for Labor Day: ‘Pretty much whatever the Republicans tell him he can do.’

“On MSNBC, the anchors were wistfully listening to old F.D.R. speeches, wishing that this president had some of that fight,” Dowd wrote. “But Obama can’t turn into F.D.R. for the campaign because he aspires to the class that F.D.R. was a traitor to; and he can’t turn into Harry Truman because he lacks the common touch. He has an acquired elitism.

“MSNBC’s Matt Miller offered ‘a public service’ to journalists talking about Obama — a list of synonyms for cave: ‘Buckle, fold, concede, bend, defer, submit, give in, knuckle under, kowtow, surrender, yield, comply, capitulate.’

“The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.”

So this means what? Middle-of-the-roaders are actually going to vote for that maniac Rick Perry? No…that can’t happen. Too much. Which is what might actually save Obama from being voted out of office. Weak and wimpy as he may seem, at least he’s not Perry. The Obama team should put that slogan on a bumper sticker.