When once pundits squabbled over how great  Obama was (Lincoln, or just FDR?) and what made him so wonderful, the debate now has turned to why he is so lacking in presidential qualities at key moments. It is not only conservatives who are aghast at Obama’s listless performance. From the Left, Maureen Dowd, sounding like she’s given up on the Gray Lady’s dreamboat, seethes:

Before he left for vacation, Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs. But in his usual inspiring/listless cycle, he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253, issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links. At least you have to seem concerned. On Tuesday, Obama stepped up to the microphone to admit what Janet Napolitano (who learned nothing from an earlier Janet named Reno) had first tried to deny: that there had been “a systemic failure” and a “catastrophic breach of security.” But in a mystifying moment that was not technically or emotionally reassuring, there was no live video and it looked as though the Obama operation was flying by the seat of its pants.

It didn’t just look that way. The Obama operation — that would be he — is obviously flying by the seat of its pants. The system worked. No it didn’t. The bomber was an isolated extremist. No he wasn’t. Part of the answer to “what is wrong” with Obama and why he is lacking in commander in chief-ness is that he frankly doesn’t seem to know what he is doing. As Dowd puts it: “In his detached way, Spock was letting us know that our besieged starship was not speeding into a safer new future, and that we still have to be scared. Heck of a job, Barry.”

Then from the Right, in a devastating column, Shelby Steele posits why Obama seems so lacking in substance and oomph:

I think that Mr. Obama is not just inexperienced; he is also hampered by a distinct inner emptiness—not an emptiness that comes from stupidity or a lack of ability but an emptiness that has been actually nurtured and developed as an adaptation to the political world.

The nature of this emptiness becomes clear in the contrast between him and Ronald Reagan. Reagan reached the White House through a great deal of what is called “individuating”—that is he took principled positions throughout his long career that jeopardized his popularity, and in so doing he came to know who he was as a man and what he truly believed.

Skating through on his appeal as a “benign — and therefore desirable” racial symbol, Obama, in Steele’s estimation, is therefore lacking a key ingredient of leadership: “He has not had to gamble his popularity on his principles, and it is impossible to know one’s true beliefs without this. In the future he may stumble now and then into a right action, but there is no hard-earned center to the man out of which he might truly lead.”

Whatever the reason, the consensus is building: Obama is not leading. In a post 9/11 world with two wars and an Iranian nuclear threat looming, this is not a comforting conclusion. Worse yet, if everyone from Dowd to Steele can figure that out, so can our enemies.