According to press reports, President Obama told supporters at a New  York fundraiser, “All that hopey changey stuff, as they say? That was real. It wasn’t something …it was real, you could feel it. You know it. It’s still there. Even in the midst of this hardship. But it’s hard. When I was in Grant Park that night, I warned everybody this was going to be hard, this wasn’t the end, it was the beginning.”

The president is spending more and more of his time these days reminding us just how hard his job is. And the fault for soaring expectations? It rests with us, not with him.

“When I said, ‘Change we can believe in,’ I didn’t say, ‘Change we can believe in tomorrow,’ ” Obama told an audience last month. “Not, ‘Change we can believe in next week.’ We knew this was going to take time, because we’ve got this big, messy, tough democracy.”

Just for the fun of it, I went back and read his Grant Park speech. And while there was a sentence about steep climbs here and long roads there, it’s fair to say the overriding theme of his address wasn’t warning us of how arduous things were going to be under an Obama presidency. Quite the opposite, really. For example, here’s how the president-elect concluded his remarks that November evening:

This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can.

The Grant Park speech shouldn’t be confused with this one, in which Obama said:

Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

And that speech, in turn, is different than this one, in which the  former-state-senator-and-community-organizer-turned-presidential-candidate said:

I am running in this race because of what Dr. King called “the fierce  urgency of now.” Because I believe that there’s such a thing as being too  late…. That’s why I’m running, Democrats – to keep the American Dream alive for  those who still hunger for opportunity, who still thirst for equality. That’s  why I’m asking you to stand with me, that’s why I’m asking you to caucus for  me, that’s why I am asking you to stop settling for what the cynics say we have  to accept. In this election – in this moment – let us reach for what we know is  possible. A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again.

I could go on and on, but  you get the point.

Obama went well beyond  the usual campaign promises and political rhetoric. Complete with a Greek column  stage set, he cast himself as a world-historical figure who would transform America. He was  the person who would provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless,  heal the planet, repair the world, and halt the rise of the oceans. Divisions  within our country would end. Wars would cease. America’s image in the world would  be restored. Dictators from Havana to Tehran, from Caracas to Pyongyang, would bow to  the power of his reason. This time would be different than all the other times. Our country, after all, had never before been graced by anyone quite like Barack Obama.

That, at least, is how the  story was sold to us. Who can possibly forget this?  Or this?  But by now the cult-like chants and the “Yes We Can” refrain, the references to  Obama as a “black Jesus” (by campaign staff) and a “sort of God” (by  journalists), the comparisons to him as Lincoln  (by pundits and historians), are a distant memory. I’m reminded what Michelle  Obama said to a reporter as she watched people fawning over him at his  swearing-in to the Senate: “Maybe one day he’ll do something to merit all this  attention.”

As the economy continues to remain (in Bill Clinton’s words) “dead flat,” as the world ignores our wishes and goes along its merry way, as the president’s approval ratings sink to new lows, and as he continues to question the patriotism of his critics and stoke embers of resentment, it is worth recalling just how much Barack Obama promised to be and just how far he has fallen short of it all.

A little more than two-and-a-half years into the job, “Yes We Can” has been replaced with a new  motto: “But It’s Hard.”

Sic transit gloria mundi.