This friend said he couldn’t (yet?) tell what Pres. Obama really cares about, what is really in his gut, and by extension, therefore, what we can really expect from him. He said unlike a Bobby Kennedy, for instance, it is hard to know what is most important to Pres. Obama.

And according to this morning’s NY Times, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said that last summer then candidate Obama told him, “You and I have a lot in common. I started on the left and moved to the center. You started on the right and moved to the center. We are both pragmatists who like to get things done.”

True? I certainly don’t know, and I have written earlier in The Outer Loop about what I see as the dangers in trying to define Pres. Obama before we really have a chance to see what he does in the crucible of the presidency, a job that he has only held for a month.

Perhaps it is my psychology background, but my ‘gasbag’ view is at this point Pres. Obama is a bit of what I term a ‘Rorschach’ president: we all see in him what we want, consciously or subconsciously, to see.

And just as the inkblot test has its doubters and critics, I continue to think that we should keep some healthy skepticism about what any one (including yours truly) says they know about Pres. Obama.

What say you? Or maybe that should be: what see you?