Two takes on Obama from Fallows

In the long hot political summer of 2011, as Obama was sliding down the precipice toward the Budget Control Act (that wonderful deed that gave us the sequester), I was struck by a balance struck between admiration and anxiety about Obama in a note from James Fallows:

"We will hope that the qualities we admire in Obama outweigh the ones that make us nervous."

Today, in a view-from-China at our three scandals, Fallows concentrates on the one that troubles him -- the leak investigation -- and by the way expresses a similar toggle-switch assessment of the president's strengths and weaknesses (in an exception to the long-term rule):

It is one of the rare times I question not his effectiveness or tactics but his judgment.