Tony Harnden's excellent piece in today's Telegraph may be stretching a point but what people miss about Bush was his directness and the fact that he (and Clinton before him) wore their emotions on their sleeve.

More serious perhaps was Mr Obama's strange disconnectedness over the Fort Hood massacre of 13 soldiers by an Army major and devout Muslim who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had praised suicide bombing and shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire.

Maybe Mr Obama had been reading the American press, much of which somehow contrived to present the atrocity as a result of combat stress due to soldiers going on repeated war deployments (though Major Nadal Hasan had not been on any) and therefore, no doubt, Mr Bush's fault.

When the television networks cut to the President, viewers listened to him spend more than two surreal minutes talking to a gathering of Native Americans about their "extraordinary" and "extremely productive" conference, pausing to give a cheery "shout out" to a man named Dr Joe Medicine Crow. Only then did he briefly and mechanically address what had happened in Texas.

On Friday, when most of the basic facts were available, Mr Obama tried again. It was scarcely any better. He began by offering "an update on the tragedy that took place" - as if it was an earthquake and not a terrorist attack from an enemy within - and ended with a promise for more "updates in the coming days and weeks".

Harnden also remarks, "Completely missing was the eloquence that Mr Obama employs when talking about himself." This may be key to understanding Obama's reaction to the election last Tuesday as well as the Fort Hood massacre. His narcissism allows for a detachment from events unless he is the total focus of attention. And, of course, anything bad that happens is totally outside of anything relating to him personally.

Strange - and not a little frightening.