Perhaps it was just never what he thought it might/should be and theres maybe 2 ways of looking at that, either the political machine is broken and way beyond his repair or the machine is working "too good" (for some depts) and he simply isn't being allowed to fix it. Im not convinced the president is always the one calling the shots, if ever.

Obama always strikes me as a driven guy who had a fairly rigid plan about what he wanted to achieve, but I suppose that sometimes comes with an inability for compromise...a basic skill in politics....although I completely disagree with it...compromise means deals, which generally means actions the public either don't hear about or get a watered down version of...neither of which they deserve from the people they have put in power