A Year of Obama

A year after Obama's triumphant election, hauling substantial majorities in the House and Senate on his coattails, the progressive sector sits trying to warm its hands before the bonfire of all its hopes. An awful "health reform" bill has cleared the House and is now headed for marriage with some even more ghastly Senate version from which we may be saved only by a filibustering Lieberman, Obama's initial mentor in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the White House is furiously denying reports from such well-regarded correspondents as David Martin of CBS that Gen. Stanley McChrystal will get "most, if not all," of what he wants. Instead of giving him the boot for insolent public challenges to the civilian executive power, Obama will order the dispatch of about 40,000 new troops (CBS's figure) to Afghanistan, representing a long-term commitment as fateful as Lyndon Johnson's surrender to General Westmoreland's request in Vietnam nearly half a century ago.

The progressives poke about among entrails of the House health bill and find evidence of mini-victories like the survival in vestigial form of the "public option"--a fetish phrase guaranteed to raise a loyal cheer whatever the realities, which in this case aren't hard to discover.

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