OBAMA'S REAL RECORD

A few weeks ago I noticed a letter to the editor when I was looking at a periodical in the local library. It listed President Obama's accomplishments in office, and it made it evident that they have been substantial and impressive. I decided later that I might want to write about that, so the following week I tried, without success, to discover which periodical the letter was in.

More recently others have been making the point made by that letter. Rachel Maddow did so on the air. Peter Beinart of the Daily Beast did so. And when the Dems want issues to run on, they will have plenty.

We have witnessed healthcare, financial regulatory reform, the stimulus package with its bolstering of our infrastructure and our transportation system and its incentives for clean and renewable energy. Under Obama we have expanded state health insurance coverage to an additional four million children. He has signed an amendment to the 1964 civil rights act that provides for equal pay for equal work. He has enabled the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. He has signed a hate crimes act. He has overhauled the student loan system. He ended a weapons system that was irrelevant to our current defense. He has taken significant steps to pave the way to a world free of nuclear weapons, including the signing of an arms agreement with Russia that will cut both nations' nuclear arsenals by one third and the creation of a nonproliferation initiative to prevent the acquiring of nuclear weapons by terrorists. He has made two Supreme Court appointments. He has gotten China to revalue its currency, which has been an objective of our government for years. He has persuaded China and Russia to support UN sanctions against Iran. He has greatly improved our relations with Russia, thus far preventing the emergence of a Sino-Russian anti-Western bloc. And energy reform is coming.

Beinart wrote, "(E)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." Taegan Goddard of the liberal blog Politicalwire wrote, "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform this country."

And where have our news media been while all this has happened? Beinart says they regard as important only those developments that have political consequences. If so, that's foolish. And I am afraid the story is worse than that. I think our media are mentally lazy and cynical. They have bought into the right-wing worldview, according to which government can do nothing right and we should all be sour and defeatist and selfish and furious. I think reporters and journalists today too often see those attitudes see as cool.

While Obama has been making major headway for us, the media have been saying that he is another Carter, that he wasted his first year in office, that he is less popular now than previously, that he may be a one-term president, that the Republicans are going to take control of the Congress in the midterms; they have doubted him and second-guessed him at every instant. They have reported the teabaggers' rebellion - a bunch of Republicans acting out - as though it were a righteous citizenry standing up to tyranny. They have treated Sarah Palin as though she were a hero rather than a self-interested professional malcontent and rabble-rouser. They have treated Fox as a legitimate news source and a model for themselves. They have grossly failed us, and they have failed at the business of recognizing and reporting actual news.

All of this will continue. But keep watching. There are still people out there who will tell you the truth, even if they have to shout through the lies and the sounds of mindless panic. Despite the disgusting media and the mendacious righties, this bitter time sooner or later will end and sanity will return to America.