In the weeks following Republican gains in Congress the left has made much ado about something -- just what that something is, though, is up for interpretation. Blaming the Obama Administration for everything from triangulation to compromise to what OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers asked recently: "Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?"
Well, if you were measuring the Obama Administration on the success and implementation of campaign promises I think it would be safe to say we found the "actual Democratic administration." Politifact.com, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project of the St. Petersburg Times, has complied a list of over 500 promises made by Obama during the campaign. To date, they have found that the Obama Administration has either completed or is in the process of completing nearly 80 percent of the campaign promises...not bad for what some liberals are considering the lost Democratic administration.
In fact, Obama's successes have touched on enough facets to make any voting bloc proud, from health care to taxes to foreign policy and energy. In the first two years of his administration, Obama has required insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions and closed the Medicare "doughnut hole," fully funded the Veterans Administration, directed military leaders to end the war in Iraq, ended Don't Ask Don't Tell, doubled federal spending on clean fuels and provided tax breaks for everything from education to health care.
Why then are many on the left attacking the president? And more importantly, what is the proposed end game of such attacks? It would be hard to argue, as some have, that this is just reincarnation of the Bush presidency or quite frankly that we could have achieved any of these objectives under President McCain.
For his part, Obama in a recent press conference reacted strongly to a question at the end about his core values - a question hitting directly on statements from many on the left that believe that compromise (generally illustrated as the loss of the public option during the health care debate) is tantamount to a failure of objective.
"So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn't get that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for a hundred million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise."
"Now, if that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then, let's face it, we will never get anything done," Obama continued. "People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are, and in the meantime, the American people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of preexisting conditions, or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out."
Ideological debate, be it within a political party or within a greater electorate, is an essential element of a functioning democracy. It leads to the presentation and vetting of ideas and ideals that travel a long process toward policy creation. But ideological purity and dogmatism are ironically things many in the left rallied against during the Bush Administration - yet many are finding these "pure" positions are the only positions a true Democratic administration can hold. Personally, I'd rather have 80 percent of what I wanted, and consequently have improved outcomes for many Americans, than an ideologically pure 100 percent of nothing.