Barbara Walters said the difficulties engulfing President Barack Obama are a reflection of the let-down people are feeling from the high expectations they had during his earliest days in office when she and others thought he was going to be "the next messiah."
The 81-year-old broadcast journalist made the remarks during an interview on CNN's "Piers Morgan Live" on Tuesday, after Morgan asked her why Obama is facing so much opposition and why "he is struggling so much to really fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement that he was elected on originally in 2009?"
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Walters said, "Well, you've touched on it to a degree. He made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be — I shouldn't say this at Christmastime, but — the next messiah."
"And the whole Obamacare, or whatever you want to call it, the Affordable Health[care] Act, it just hasn't worked for him, and he's stumbled around on it, and people feel very disappointed because they expected more."
She added that the negative sentiment toward Obama is mainly due to the very high expectations people had for him.
"You're almost better off when they are low and then they rise and rise. His were very high and they've dropped. But you know, he still has several years to go. What does he have, three years, Piers? And you know, there will be a lot of changes, one thinks, in that time."
The most recent poll shows that the president's
approval rating has sunk to its lowest levels since he's been in office, and marks the lowest approval rating of any other two-term president since World War II, with the exception of Richard Nixon, who was embroiled in the Watergate scandal.
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