Maybe There's Kryptonite In The Water Supply

It has been a tough two weeks. Even for a guy who was not supposed to have much of a honeymoon, fourteen days seems like a short time for our new president to get comfortable in that big chair. Nothing is getting fixed fast, and discussion about how to fix things has slowed to a crawl. It's back to business as usual in our nation's capital.
Or is it? President Barack Obama to CBS: "I screwed up."
Obama to CNN: "I think I screwed up, and I take responsibility for it."
Obama to NBC: "Did I screw up in this situation? Absolutely. And I'm willing to take my lumps."
This is our president's response to, by his own admission, mishandling the confirmation of some of his cabinet appointees. Where is the plausible deniability? Where is the obfuscation? Where is the chest thumping rhetoric? After eight years of Bizarro-World President. This feels like a breath of fresh air.
But even too much fresh air can give one pneumonia. We are approaching the thirtieth anniversary of Jimmy Carter's infamous "National Malaise" speech. This was the straightest talk our country may have ever received from its chief executive, and most historians point to that moment as the end of any hope Carter had at a second term: "I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?" This was thirty years ago. Many of the problems that were left unsolved back then are the same ones that have only become worse with age: The economy, the environment, the situation in the Middle East.
I appreciate the candor, and I can only hope that our president's straight talk rebuilds the trust that has all but disappeared in the past three decades. That is my hope. Now I'm waiting for the change.