"'THE LAST TIME ANY PRESIDENT DID THIS MUCH IN OFFICE, BOOZE WAS ILLEGAL'.... "

[Cha]

<snip>

Last week, I mentioned in passing that President Obama's record of accomplishments, after just 17 month in office, is as impressive as anything we've seen in generations. It prompted Howard Kurtz to ask, "Will the Beltway pundits reassess Obama's presidency once he signs the banking bill? Don't hold your breath."

I agree; it's unlikely the Beltway pundits will pursue this. Indeed, the establishment consensus is pushing aggressively in the other direction. But I'm noticing the larger observation about Obama's historic record is nevertheless becoming at least a little more common.

Peter Beinart noted today that for all the challenges making life difficult for the president right now, "he keeps racking up the wins." Indeed, Beinart makes the compelling case that Obama has recorded more significant milestones in 18 months than the last two Democratic administrations achieved in 12 years.

ven if Obama never manages another legislative victory, he'll already have pulled off one of the most impressive opening acts in American political history. <...>

The larger truth is this: Even as Republicans claim political momentum, the country is in the midst of a major shift leftward when it comes to the role of government. That shift is playing itself out from infrastructure to health care to finance and perhaps eventually to the environment. No one knows whether these shifts will revive the U.S. economy and lay the foundation for stable, broad-based growth, just as no one could predict the impact of the rightward turn in American policy in the early 1980s. Decades later, liberals and conservatives still disagree about whether Reagan's reforms changed America for good or ill. What they don't disagree about is the fact that they fundamentally changed America. Those changes made Reagan one of the most consequential presidents in American history. Eighteen months in, it's a good bet that historians will say the same about Barack Obama.

Beinart isn't the only one making this observation.

Take Rachel Maddow, for instance.

<more>
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_06/024482.php#1791916

[azmouse]

1. That frightens me...

the thought of booze being illegal.

Obama will never get credit for what's he has done. The media is too invested in keeping Republicans in power.

[Cha]

2. It was a catchy way to put it 'cause..nobody

remembers that.

The President will get credit from the right people..those who are paying attention and want this country to succeed.

The corporatemediawhores brought us the bushcheney coup and the bombing on Iraq.