The hand on the tiller

Esquire's Tim Heffernan on what President Obama has accomplished despite the stormy seas his presidency has faced thus far:

"Obama, the one-term wunderkind who ascended to the presidency with astonishing speed and alacrity — and who then did the hardest thing: slowed himself down, shifted the spotlight back to the legislature, recognized that he was no longer the representative of one party but of a whole nation, and began to play what Andrew Sullivan has been calling "the long game." In two years, in the face of a uniformly cynical and hostile opposition, he has managed time and again to win political battles, any one of which can be called major: universal health care, banking regulation, fair pay for women, draw-down in Iraq and ramp-up in Afghanistan, the rescue of Detroit, the prevention of global economic collapse, the end of discrimination against immigrants with AIDS, same-sex benefits for government workers, two massive middle-class tax cuts, and, yes, the repeal of DADT. If, as suddenly seems distinctly possible, the new START treaty is passed this week, his place will be cemented as the shrewdest ex-senator in the White House since LBJ. And his record will be far more kindly viewed by history."

Not bad, for government work. Or as Andrew Sullivan would put it, meep-meep.