Mithras on recent news from the White House

Mithras, unlike a lot of the progressive/left-wing bloggers over the past couple of days, thoughtfully discusses President Obama's executive order on offshore drilling with calm, reason, facts, and a review of Obama's political strategy all along.

Also, a note about a real, concrete environmental win by the administration: a sharp reduction in the number of permits that will be issued for shaving Appalachian mountaintops for coal.

I'll add a comment about the health insurance reform bill as well. As President Obama mentioned in Iowa when he was heckled about the public option not being included in the bill, he "couldn't get it through Congress." So what we got was a lousy health reform bill, with minimal (but very tangible for a lot of people) advances for progressives. But understand: we got the changes; "progressive" means incremental change, not 180-degree turns; and a whole lot of Republicans are going to face their constituents come campaign time -- after people will have started to see a difference in their wallet -- having to explain why they voted against even these small changes.

And remember, the health insurance reforms aren't going to go away. They're only going to be improved on and expanded, though of course it'll be two steps forward, one step back. It's always been this way in the deliberately broken scheme of separation of powers we have.

Barack Obama has always been a politician. The executive order about federally funded abortions was meaningless. Read it. It merely points out to the various agencies where they need to look in the health insurance reform bill to follow the rules. The order was a piece of paper tossed at Republican obstructionists, showing that it's the other party in the debate that's willing to, well, debate and come to the table for a conversation.

I think it's been President Obama's strategy since the day he entered politics: be the person who's (seen as being) willing to talk, discuss, and compromise, while making the other party look like a completely unreasonable, uncompromising asshole. I don't know if it'll work in the long term, but it sure is hard to see from day to day. What else is sure is that a lot of instant WHARRGARBL from the left every time the Republicans get what will end up to be a fake win doesn't help.