The failure of leadership is bilateral. The primary purpose of both major parties IS to cause the other major party to fail...and to get themselves elected...or to remain in office if already elected.

Everything they do is first and foremost ruled by that primary consideration.

Their failure to think unselfishly of the genuine interests of the public and the nation (and even of other nations in the world community), rather than their own selfish, parochial interests...results in a failure of leadership, a failure of vision, and a failed system.

Their inability to work together results in a failed nation.

Period.

I'm not saying Mr Obama himself is necessarily to blame for all that. Hardly!!! He may, in fact, merely be one of the many hapless victims OF that situation, because he's mired in it like a helpless animal in a tarpit, and he's been mired in it ever since he went to Washington...probably even before he went there.

It's the divisive 2-party system itself that has caused the American nation to fail. As long as individual Democrats and Republicans insist on just blaming the OTHER party (or the Teabaggers or some other noticeable faction) for what's going wrong, they will be missing at least half of the problem...which is the partisan system itself, the way it is FUNDED, and the dog-eat-dog behaviour it brings forth in its participants.

Where does it all lead eventually? To a failed economy. A failed political system. A failed foreign policy. A failed nation. Maybe even another civil war somewhere farther on down the line.