The conventional wisdom on Barack Obama is that he is one cool character, "no drama Obama," as he liked to say during the 2008 campaign. But this demeanor is a pose, a self-constructed facade, designed to conceal the deeper issues that trouble him. Psychoanalyst Justin Frank, a political sympathizer, grabbed much attention earlier this week with an exploration of the President's psychological problems in dealing with the pressures of office

On a psychoanalytic level, Obama is someone who tries to disconnect himself from fury through intellectual exertion and by strenuously trying to keep matters in clear focus. He doesn't simply contain his rage or hold it inside his mind; he dissociates-a psychoanalytic term for disconnecting thought from feeling.　 This allows him to operate in a purely intellectual state, protected from the disruptive influences of excessive passions.

Yesterday, in three fundraising speeches, Obama gave some indication that the pressure is showing. Andrew Malcolm of IBD describes it as "A strangely desperate new Obama campaign speech: Urgent, dramatic, about him":

 ...at all three stops Obama, who has sunk in job approval polls from 69% to the low 40s, injected a far stronger note of urgency　about next year's reelection bid than he has since announcing last spring.

"Every single thing that we care about is at stake in the next election," he told one donor group.　 "The very core of what this country stands for is on the line."

So, the future of the entire country is now inextricably tied to　Obama's own reelection?

Such hyperbolic, hubristic　claims are usually reserved for a campaign's closing hours to prompt a last-minute spurt of political adrenalin among supporters. Not　341 days out. Not　10 months before　even early voting opens. This couldn't possibly be desperation! Already?

Here are several other　points made by Obama　to a possibly puzzled crowd assembled at the Gotham Bar and Grille:

"I've got to win in 2012."

"In order to finish the job, I'm going to have to have a second term."

"I need a couple more years to finish the job."

"I'm going to need another term to finish the job."

And in case anyone had missed the point, the ex-partial-term senator said, "I'm going to need a few more years to finish the job."

This was in　one　speech.

He gave three of them.

So Joe Cool is feeling the heat, apparently.

Last night in a lengthy interview with Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich came up with a one-liner on Obama that carries quite a sting. Newt certainly knows how to turn the heat on Obama, and you can hear it at 21:32 in the following video (link repaired) of the entire interview.

"You can either be incompetent or radical, but if you're both incompetent and radical it's probably more than the system can bear."

For an extra treat, go to 25:10