Did you notice how filled with anticipatory glee the Main Stream Media was over the arrival of Hurricane Irene?

It was sad and amazing at the same time.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me.  Storms are dangerous.  Eighteen people lost their lives due to Irene, and 3,000,000 lost power.

However, it did not turn out to be the Rehearsal for Armageddon that the MSM claimed that it was going to be.  They were hoping that it was going to be just like Hurricane Katrina and that their president, Obama, was going to get to show his magnificent leadership skills in this time of crisis.

Instead, it basically turned out to be less damaging than an Oklahoma tornado, and all of those pictures of Obama sitting in his Command Center wound up looking about as serious as an adolescent playing video games.

Toby Harnden, in an article posted at telegraph.co.uk, summed it up this way:

For the television reporter, clad in his red cagoule emblazoned with the CNN logo, it was a dramatic on-air moment, broadcasting live from Long Island, New York during a hurricane that also threatened Manhattan.

“We are in, right, now…the right eye wall, no doubt about that…there you see the surf,” he said breathlessly. “That tells a story right there.”

Stumbling and apparently buffeted by ferocious gusts, he took shelter next to a building. “This is our protection from the wind,” he explained. “It’s been truly remarkable to watch the power of the ocean here.”

The surf may have told a story but so too did the sight behind the reporter of people chatting and ambling along the sea front and just goofing around. There was a man in a t-shirt, a woman waving her arms and then walking backwards. Then someone on a bicycle glided past.

Across the screen, the “Breaking News: Irene Batters Long Island” caption was replaced by stern advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): “Stay inside, stay safe.”

The images summed up Hurricane Irene – the media and the United States federal government trying to live up to their own doom-laden warnings and predictions while a sizeable number of ordinary Americans just carried on as normal and even made gentle fun of all the fuss.

There was almost palpable disappointment among the TV big guns rolled out for the occasion when Irene was downgraded to a mere ‘tropical storm”. In New York city, CNN’s silver-haired Anderson Cooper, more usually seen in a tight t-shirt in a famine or war zone, was clad in what one wag dubbed “disaster casual”.

He looked crestfallen and fell briefly silent when a weatherwoman told him that the rain was not going to get any worse. “Wow, because this isn’t so bad,” he said. “It’s an annoying rain but it isn’t even a sideways rain.”

Disappointment.  Disillusion.  A bunch of hype leading to something that wound up fizzling out.  Sound familiar?  I’ve got three words for ya:

Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm)

Do you remember all of the campaign promises Obama made?  Politifact.com does.  In fact, they have a list called The Top Promises on the Obameter:

1. Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners
2. Create a tax credit of $500 for workers
3. Repeal the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes
4. Begin removing combat brigades from Iraq
5. Train and equip the Afghan army
6. End the use of torture
7. Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center
8. Restrict warrantless wiretaps
9. Seek verifiable reductions in nuclear stockpiles
10. Centralize ethics and lobbying information for voters
11. Require more disclosure and a waiting period for earmarks
12. Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials
13. Secure the borders
14. Provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants
15. Reform mandatory minimum sentences
16. Secure nuclear weapons materials in four years
17. Strengthen antitrust enforcement
18. Create new financial regulations
19. Sign a “universal” health care bill
20. Create 5 million “green” jobs
21. Reduce oil consumption by 35 percent by 2030
22. Will “reduce oil consumption overall by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels of oil, by 2030.
23. Create cap and trade system with interim goals to reduce global warming
24. If you don’t have insurance, or don’t like the insurance you have, you’ll be able to choose a new plan on a health insurance exchange.
25. Cut the cost of a typical family’s health insurance premium by up to $2,500 a year.
26. Bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda

According to The Obameter Scorecard that Polifact keeps up with, here’s how Obama is doing with his 500 campaign promises that they’re tracking:

Promise Kept 144

Compromise 41

Promise Broken 44

Stalled 73

In the Works 204

Not yet rated 2

Not so great, huh?

In fact, just yesterday, gallup.com reported that Obama had reached his lowest disapproval ate yet, scoring 55% disapproval as compared to 38% who approved of the job he was doing as President of the United States.

As of April 17,2009, Gallup showed Obama’s approval rating averaging 63% for the First Quarter of his Presidency.

That means that his approval rating has fallen 25 percentage points in just  27 months.

Talk about fizzling out.