Little suggests that Barack Obama will respond to his party's dramatic defeat by taking serious action. The next day, one would have expected a meek president to address the people and say: "I understand."

It was a full hour into his address to the American people, when he finally admitted that he had suffered a "shellacking" and, in the stress of the job, lost "contact" with the people. An ability to change course is not one of Obama's strengths.

Some people who know him say he is too principled a man to allow himself to be forced into adopting a new political line. But cosmetic changes will not be enough. Obama will have to alter the tone and substance of his presidency. Anything less will mean that he misunderstood the message of the vote.

He is not simply a president who has been punished a little bit. Voters have basically triggered a blood bath. The massacre is worse than that of 1994 and 1946, when the Democrats lost more than 50 seats each time. Among the living members of Congress today, no one can recall a time in which so few Democrats sat in the House of Representatives.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,727290,00.html