He needs to be more “inspiring” in his second term. That’s been the big weakness so far, apparently.

“When I think about what we’ve done well and what we haven’t done well,” the president said, “the mistake of my first term – couple of years – was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that’s important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times.”…

Pressed by Rose about what he felt he needed to explain better to the American people, the president corrected that he wanted to do more “explaining, but also inspiring.”

Yeah. Just yesterday I was thinking, “If only he’d talked more about how awesome it is that 25-year-olds can stay on their parents’ insurance under ObamaCare, I’d totally be willing to choke on that trillion-dollar pricetag.”

This is, of course, the political equivalent of telling a recruiter during a job interview that your big “weakness” is that you “try too hard.” It’s an almost completely meaningless self-criticism: The point, as is always the case in “messaging” complaints, is to compliment yourself on the correctness of your policy choices while blaming their failure on some facile communication problems. Serious question for liberals: Do you agree? Last I checked, there are plenty of policy complaints about The One from the left. Am eager to hear someone in his base defend the idea that had his rhetoric at the time soared a bit higher, the Democrats’ failure to include the public option in the final O-Care bill would be no biggie. Being condescended to by your political leaders is fun, huh?

Exit question: What’s the “inspiring” explanation for running guns to Mexican drug cartels?

Update: Slublog’s photoshop on this is 24-karat gold.