Obama: “Comeback kid” or “Never lost his mojo”?

by David Safier

FULL DISCLOSURE: I haven't written about Obama for awhile because I feared I had turned into an apologist. Everyone I knew was furious at the guy for his failures, and I found myself wanting to say, "Wait a minute, are you forgetting what he's accomplished? Are you forgetting what he was up against?" I felt I had lost my perspective, so I figured I'd shut up for awhile.

OK, awhile is over. All of a sudden, even Obama's detractors on the left are catching their collective breaths at what he's pulled off. The O-man is back! So it's time to write again . . .

Have you ever watched a baseball game where one of the young, rising stars strikes out, then hits a weak blooper right to the center fielder, then hits into a double play? The announcers are all over him. He's in a slump. He's not trying. We used to think he was the future of the franchise. Look at that pitch he just went after! Where is his judgement? Then he hits the game winning home run in the 12th inning, and the announcers shout, "He's Back!" Um, no, guys, he's not back. He never went anywhere. He just had a couple of bad times at bat.

Obama has an unusual style for a successful politician. He's low key. He doesn't chest up to the opposition just to show what a man he is. But he also doesn't give up unless there's absolutely no chance of winning. He bides his time. Then when the opposition thinks it's won, when it rests on its laurels, he marshals his forces and goes to work. And he gets things done that other presidents haven't been able to do on their best days.

After being virtually written off by the pundits and pilloried by the left, Obama is earning superlatives. This is being called the most productive lame duck Congressional session since . . . I don't know, ever. DADT repeal is being called the most important piece of civil rights legislation since the Civil Rights bill. People are saying Obama accomplished more in his first two years than anyone since LBJ.

Let's work backward. The START Treaty. 9/11 Responders bill. Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal. Financial reform. Health care reform.  Economic stimulus.

I'm sure I've left important legislation out, but that's a pretty damn good list. And it was all accomplished in the face of an organized conservative opposition which makes the pressure on Clinton look like a couple of school bullies giving Bill a wedgie in the boy's room.

No legislation is as good as we want it to be. Some people would have liked Obama better if he suffered honorable, defend-his-principles-to-the-death defeats. Instead, he has racked up an impressive string of tarnished victories. I'll take the victories, thank you very much.

And with the DADT repeal and the START Treaty votes, Obama got Republicans to buck their leadership. He cracked their solidarity and might have begun what will turn into something of a civil war when the newly elected crazy Republicans do battle with the old guard, not-quite-as-crazy Republican leadership.

Give the O-man his due. He began the job with more on his plate than any human could hope to deal with and one of the most vicious, organized oppositions in American political history. He's still standing two years later, working his way, slowly and carefully, through the mess Bush left him while carving out new, historic legislation.