Why the surprise?

To all those who are surpised by Obama's ineffective passivity:

Why didn't you look at his record before you voted?

Doubts about Barack Obama's presidential credentials have crystallized during the past two weeks over his stewardship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs, which has convened no policy hearings since he took over as its chairman last January. That startling fact, first uncovered by Steve Clemons, who blogs on the Washington Note, prompted acid comment in Europe about the Illinois senator's failure to visit the continent since assuming the committee post, and even speculation that he had never traveled there except for a short stopover in London.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/12/29/obama_europe/

Of course, when this was published on 12/29/07, it was dismissed as racist slander.