[T]he president is concluding 2010 by directly confronting issues that have come to define the sweep of his presidency – the economy [the compromised stimulus], foreign engagement [New Start] and questions of social justice [DADT]....
[T]aken together, the scope of legislative activity has surprised many people in Washington who had last month expected little to be accomplished in the period between Republican victories in November and January, when scores of new conservative lawmakers arrive.
One incontrovertible lesson to be taken from Obama's roughly four years as candidate and president is that he not only rolls with the punches, he finesses them.
Some among his diverse base fly into violent rounds of denunciation at the drop of every apparently disappointing hat. Yet Obama, after often-aggravating but strategically reasoned reserve, comes roaring back to surprise.
These seeming disconnects in timing which later prove altogether connected would also seem, by now, to represent a brand of presidential leadership his base can believe in; and the almost laughable extent they don't, or can't, says more about that deferred-gratification-challenged segment than about the president himself.
It speaks as well to the 24/7 drubbing of strategic patience doled out mercilessly by the chattering asses of progressive media.