Strange or what?

The first quote is from columnist Michael Kinsley, pushing back at liberal critics of President Obama, in this case while reviewing Thomas Frank’s new book, Pity the Billionaire.

“A Democratic president who gets us health care reform and tough new financial protection for consumers, who guides the economy through its roughest period in 80 years with moderate success (who could do better?), who ends our long war in Iraq and avenges the worst insult to our sovereignty since Pearl Harbor (as his Republican predecessor manifestly failed to do, despite a lot of noise and promises); a president who faced an opposition of really spectacular intransigence and downright meanness; a president who has the self-knowledge and wisdom about Washington … that president deserves a bit more credit from the left.”

Here’s the second, from The Onion, imagining a frustrated President Obama asking Americans why he ought to even bother running for a second term.

When a rationale for reelection is still being developed—and expressed more effectively by people outside the campaign— you’ve got a problem.

“You can help 40 million Americans receive health care, sign legislation that regulates a financial system run amok, give the order to kill Osama bin Laden, help topple Muammar Qaddafi’s tyrannical regime without losing the life of one American soldier, end the war in Iraq, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, stave off a second Great Depression, take out more than 30 top al-Qaeda leaders, and somehow everyone still calls you the next Jimmy Carter.”