In an email to Reuters commenting on Obama's troubles, Harvard Law School mentor, Professor Lawrence Tribe provides a nice nonthreatening commentary on his troubles.  

Tribe wrote in an email to Reuters that on campus, 'Barack Obama could live in a world unclouded by bureaucratic and political obstacles. As President, however, Barack Obama needs to impose his basic beliefs and priorities on the vast bureaucracy. ... His failings, in my view, have much more to do with whatever he has permitted to take place under the supposed oversight of (individual Cabinet secretaries) than they have to do with his own constitutional understanding and commitments.''

I'd call that full suck-up mode. Should a vacancy occur on the Supreme Court, we'll see if it pays off.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky