`Hope' poster artist feels let down

Washington

 The artist who designed the iconic Obama `Hope' poster that launched millions of dreams now has the audacity to say he is disillusioned with the president even though there is small uptick in his approval ratings.

“Do you think Obama has lived up to your `Hope' poster?“ Shepard Fairey , the street artist who came up with the famous poster was asked in an Esquire interview.

 “Not even close,“ he responded, articulating the widespread disillusionment across America about a young African-American president who was voted to office with such great expectation from constituents.

 Fairey rationalized some of the difficulties Obama faced after he inherited a mess, but said “there have been a lot of things that he's compromised on that I never would have expected -drones and domestic spying are the last things I would have thought (he'd support).“

 He maintained though that Obama is a “quality human being“ who finds himself in a position where his actions are largely dictated by things out of his control, but he could have done more, particularly taking money out of politics.

 But even more than Obama, Fairey lit into the American public, regretting that it was uneducated and complacent. “I hate to say Americans are ignorant and lazy , but a lot of them are ignorant and lazy .When you live in a place that has a lot of good things that make life easier, it's easier to take them for granted,“ he said. The thumbs down from a liberal demographic that was Obama's major support base came even as the president inched into positive approval ratings for the first time in two years this week.

 The latest Wall Street JournalNBC News poll showed Obama with 48% approving and 47% disapproving -a figure well within the survey's 3.1% point margin of error.

 Remarkably , the president's approval numbers were better than that of any of the candidates running for the White House in 2016, reflecting the great unease among Americans about the quality of their politicians.