Obama shows no sign of easing up on negativity.

President Obama is casting his lot in the middle of a debate as old as America itself: Are we rugged individualists pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps? Or are we a nation of community, all connected and counting on one another?

By nominating Chuck Hagel to be his Defense secretary, President Obama is putting forward an aloof contrarian who doesn't suffer fools - a striving politician who considers himself above politics.

Historians will likely give Obama credit for steering the country away from the brink of economic collapse in 2009.

If history is a guide, a victory for Obama means he faces the prospect of a second term dogged by scandal or inertia.

The problem, gentlemen, is that Obama is right: The promise of upward mobility is dying in America, and no amount of political demagoguery will fix it.