Obama's done plenty, so why won't he tell us?

CNN) -- I'm obviously not the only one disappointed in Barack Obama.
I thought he would be another Reagan in at least one respect: He'd be a great communicator. Listening to his speeches in 2008, I thought that this man could connect. He had energy and vision, hope and strength.
So what happened?

Somewhere along the way, disturbingly early in his first term, he fizzled as a communicator.
It's not that he didn't do good things. He brought the American economy back from the brink of another Great Depression, and (by comparison with our counterparts in Europe) we are doing extremely well. Jobs are back, with unemployment steadily falling, and the stock market has soared, thus underpinning the retirement hopes of millions who rely on equity portfolios to sustain them in their old age.

We have discontinued pursuing "wars of choice," although it may take generations to recover from the mistake of invading Iraq, which will cost the American taxpayers two trillion bucks -- with health care for veterans taxing our children and grandchildren for years to come.
Obama withdrew somewhat precipitously from Iraq, putting too much faith in the Shia-led government in Baghdad and giving ISIS an opening. He may have done this in part out of frustration over the Shia-led government's inability to provide legal protections for American troops that would have remained.

But in truth, he handled the situation pretty well in the end, as ISIS is sputtering out, slowly but surely. Indeed, ISIS was always a ragtag (if singularly vicious) group surrounded by natural and powerful enemies, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. They were a flash in the pan, though a painful one.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/07/opinion/parini-obama-puzzle/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7