I don't know what all the sarcastic bitterness is, but I think Obama held the moral high ground to a large degree and is seen as having one the scrap. Now he has to take the input from the right and fold it into his future plan. I would be glad to see him find an acceptable middle ground in which neither plutocrats nor extreme socialists carry the day. We're about hammering out an acceptable truth in the middle ground, I think.