I've loved watching critics flail in their attempts to take down Sullivan's recent Newsweek cover story on President Obama. Sullivan lays out a case that when you look at the facts of what the administration has done, what it said it would do, and what it was up against (everything from a major recession to the most obstructionist opposition in modern history), it's amazing they did what they did.
I too was an early supporter of Obama, and still am, and tend not to get chicken little every time he hangs back taking political hit after hit from opponents. I know that he plays a long game, and while he doesn't always win, he's almost always doubted by his opposition (and allies).
There is one longer game, though, that may be outplaying him. It's one that doesn't negotiate: the ecosystem. The planet is changing due to our actions and we're hitting planetary limits of both resource extraction and emissions. Partisanship on climate change and on the issue of our dependence on oil has squelched discussion of the science and stymied real action. (And that partisanship and ridiculousness has only gotten worse, with school boards pushing the teaching of climate denial in public schools.)
The administration did manage a few small steps towards renewable energy, fuel efficiency, etc. But the science tells us that's woefully inadequate: no less a (small c) conservative organization than the IEA said recently we need to not just stop emissions growth but start decreasing emissions within less than 5 years.
As a candidate he was asked a pretty common question: if you had to pick one major reform, what would it be? Obama said he'd pick energy: it'd help our economy, our national security, and our climate and environment. He was right. He's still right. It's the one issue that touches virtually everything. Fixing our energy policy can help resolve long-standing issues in so many domains---the economy (bringing back manufacturing, reversing some globalization, being less dependent upon expensive oil), national security (we wouldn't have to be worried constantly about what the next flare up in the Middle East might bring), our climate, our health (shifting away from energy-intensive staples like corn towards local agriculture would vastly improve what we eat, less asthma from particulate pollution, etc.), and so on.
Now four years have passed and a best-case timeline involves electing a majority in the house and a supermajority in the senate that strongly support alternative energy and climate legislation (unlikely to say the least), passing a bill such as a clean energy dividend in 2013 or 2014 to take effect in 2016 or 2017, and hoping that we avoid the worst. And that's just on the climate side of things---there's oil depletion, which we'll likely begin to really bear the brunt of during the upcoming presidential term, and yet there's no discussion of it.
This is a long game (if it's a game at all), one that oil is winning.