While folks have been passing around Jacob Weisberg's contrarian but accurate take on the Obama administration's first year, I'm not sure it's entirely the correct picture. Weisberg is right that Obama's accomplishments are underappreciated and his errors magnified by the Beltway scrum, but his overall conclusion is a bit too generous with the president. On the other hand, New York Magazine's John Heilemann has a piece that does a better job of diagnosing the administration's ills without falling into GOP talking points -- "too fast!" -- or false expectations created by a campaign that never was -- "why is he putting more troops into Afghanistan!?"Heilemann's assessment -- Obama has yet to demonstrate exactly where he stands on so many issues that he has become "worryingly indistinct" -- rings true at times, even as he recognizes the president's "great aplomb and fortitude" in handling the myriad crises before him. And I think Heilemann's advice is spot on, giving Obama a chance to turn things around ... tonight:What’s required most of all from Obama at this moment, however, is clarity. There will be no avoiding unhappiness in many quarters about his decision when it comes to Afghanistan. There is no answer to the deficit-unemployment conundrum that will satisfy everyone. But the process of making unpopular choices will help turn Obama from a passive to an active president. The challenge for him—and what he does so well when he is so moved—will be to explain those choices, to educate the electorate, to speak to us as adults. To lay out what he believes and why, along with a vision of the future to which he wants to shepherd the country.Read the whole thing. Where do you come down between a "brilliant" first year and "the air hissing out of the Obama balloon"?
-- Tim Fernholz
