Next Time Just Say, "I'm the president of the U.S.A. I'm not your life coach."

 

New York Post cover girl Velma Hart seems to have surprised President Obama with a sharp complaint about her fiscal condition during a CNBC town hall.

Hart, chief financial officer at the veterans organization AmVets and a self-identified 2008 Obama supporter, made domestic and overseas headlines by pronouncing herself "exhausted," "disappointed" and still "waiting" for "a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class."

Hart did not specify her particulars, but she has children in private school and no credit card, so bully for Hart. Her problem seems to be that she and her husband have realized in middle age that they have not yet graduated from the "hot dogs and beans era" of their lives. (Just start calling it "cassoulet," Mrs. Hart. You'll even think it tastes better.)

I'm not sure what the president of the United States is supposed to do about Hart's troubles. Obama went on at fourfold Hart's length:

 

Note that the president does not answer the only question that Hart asked him (o forlorn hope) to answer honestly: "Is this my new reality?"