Obama's '09 Successes

There's been a lot of crying and angst on the left about Obama's supposed lack of accomplishments and his willingness to compromise during 2009. While I include myself in the group that would like to see more done faster I also recognize that a lot has been accomplished and the political reality of dealing with a ideologically divided Congress is very difficult.

So my response to the stone throwers on the left...get real!

Andrew Sullivan sums it up well...

My own view is that 2009 has been an extraordinarily successful year for Obama. Since this is currently a minority view and will prompt a chorus of "In The Tank!", allow me to explain.

The substantive record is clear enough. Torture is ended... The unitary executive, claiming vast, dictatorial powers over American citizens, has been unwound. The legal inquiries that may well convict former Bush officials for war crimes are underway, and the trial of KSM will reveal the lawless sadism of the Cheney regime that did so much to sabotage our war on Jihadism. Military force against al Qaeda in Pakistan has been ratcheted up considerably, even at a civilian cost that remains morally troubling. Iraq remains dodgy in the extreme, but at least March elections have been finally nailed down.

Domestically, the new president has rescued the banks in a bail-out that has come in at $200 billion under budget; the economy has shifted from a tailspin to stablilization and some prospect of job growth next year; the Dow is at 10,500 a level no one would have predicted this time last year. A stimulus package has helped undergird infrastructure and probably did more to advance non-carbon energy than anything that might have emerged from Copenhagen. Universal health insurance (with promised deficit reduction!) is imminent - a goal sought by Democrats (and Nixon) for decades, impossible under the centrist Clinton, but won finally by a black liberal president. More progress has been made in unraveling the war on drugs this past year than in living memory. On civil rights, civil marriage came to the nation's capital city, which has a 60 percent black population. And, yes, the unspeakable ban on HIV-positive foreigners was finally lifted, bringing the US back to the center of the global effort to fight AIDS as it should be.

Relations with Russia have improved immensely and may yield real gains in non-proliferation; Netanyahu has moved, however insincerely, toward a two-state solution; global opinion of the US has been transformed.

A reader's excellent reply to Sullivan's post...

There is actually a pretty simple reason for the unhappiness with Obama of many on the left. Many on the left decry the consumerist behavior of some Americans -- spending on anything that happens to catch their fancy, whether they really need it, or can afford it, or not. But much of the left is infected with exactly the same flaw: the demand for instant gratification.