As we approach that crucial, media-manufactured ‘100 Days’ of this fledgling presidential administration, The Nation’s Katha Pollitt has a few words of advice for her fellow latte-sipping brethren:
The only people I’ve found who’ve given up on [Obama], who feel betrayed, misled, and foolish, are those leftists who didn’t like him in the first place and voted for him in a weak moment as the lesser evil. They, predictably, went back to their cabins on Mt. Disdain before Obama had even been inaugurated. Obama will never satisfy the left because no president could. FDR didn’t satisfy the left either.
Aptly stated.
It’s also important to keep in mind that it’s the first hundred days out of nearly 1,500. That’s well under 10% of the total amount of time he has to resuscitate (or, at the absolute least, field dress) a critically-wounded country. So when weighing the progressive-minded initiatives he’s accomplished thus far (the stimulus bill, expansion of children’s health care, equal pay for women, tax cuts for 95% of working Americans, etc.) against those he’s been forced to compromise (slashing farm subsidies, carbon cap-and-trade tax, dewy-eyed bipartisanship, etc.), the net result is almost a wash. And he has plenty of political capital to burn — his approval rating is a near-steady 68%.
1,000 days later...
Remember: Native Kentuckian Henry Clay once said that a good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied. Judging by the vapid impatience and bitching prevalent on both sides of the American political spectrum, Barry’s probably not doing so bad.
Besides, he’s already laying the groundwork for his budget by usurping GOP ‘values ‘rhetoric’, and his ’softened’ stance toward single-payer health care could be the Trojan horse that gets some (hopefully) decent reformative legislation passed. Obama won’t be able to make everyone happy, but anyone who’s ever had a boss who was always trying to be your “friend” knows that it’s an approach that doesn’t work. Sometimes being a dick is an essential part of being The Boss.
Yet thus far, Obama is biding his time. Until we see some silver threads among the gold, he’s still merely warming up.