Why Obama supporters ought to count their blessings. [View All]

[babylonsister]

http://www.slate.com/id/2236558/

Whinge Purge
Why Obama supporters ought to count their blessings.
By Bruce Reed

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When political and policy challenges pile up, what administrations need—and often crave—is good advice. What supporters usually bombard them with instead is whining. One Huffington Post commentator urged sacking Geithner for being "Obama's Rumsfeld." Arianna herself just accused Geithner and Larry Summers of turning unemployment into "Obama's Katrina." In a Daily Beast post called "Amateur Hour at the White House," Les Gelb insisted that Obama's Asian trip was such a failure that the president should shake up his national security team and "take responsibility himself, as President Kennedy did after the Bay of Pigs fiasco."

To his credit, Obama hasn't taken the bait. In October, he joked about his supporters' impatience: "Why haven't you solved world hunger yet? It's been nine months." Like clockwork, a few days later, activists and members of Congress complained that the administration was moving too slowly on world hunger.

For the president's sake, let's hope that this Thanksgiving, supporters can stop the whinging long enough to be thankful for the progress they've made. By any objective measure, Obama has had a successful first year. He inherited an economy on the brink of depression; 10 months later, the economy is recovering, even if the job market is lagging. His economic plan has helped avert a series of disasters—from the automobile, housing, and financial industries going out of business to state and local government going into default. He has signed new laws on national service, equal pay, hate crimes, and many other overdue concerns; made real strides on energy; and launched a quiet revolution in education.

Not least, Obama's top legislative priority, health reform, is now almost close enough to smell the Rose Garden. After six presidents have tried, health reform may be just six weeks away from finally happening.

In the new year, Obama can channel the country's continuing hunger for change to good advantage. With the centerpiece of his 2009 agenda near completion, he can spend December preparing a plan to accelerate job growth and innovation and address the kitchen-table concerns of the struggling middle class in 2010 and beyond. Our national to-do list may be daunting and long, but that's what Obama meant by a new era of responsibility: more work, less whining.

All the historical comparisons should remind us of how much better off we are than we were not so long ago. Obama's first year—unlike JFK's—brought no foreign policy crises. His swift passage of the stimulus bill showed he was no Hoover. His deliberation over Afghanistan makes clear there will be no Rumsfeld. And every day of the Obama presidency, we can be thankful that on one point, at least, Maureen Dowd is right: He's no Sarah Palin.