Working. Day & Night.
Words.
"We are beginning to learn that the Obama presidency will be an era of substantial but deferred accomplishments -- perhaps always to be accompanied by a sense of continuing crisis. His vaunted "cool" allows him to wait without impatience and to endure without visible despair. It asks the same of his constituents.
...This is the characteristic pattern, we can begin to see, of Obama's great initiatives. It is repeated in health care and in economic policymaking, and -- it seems safe to speculate -- it is likely to be followed in education, energy, the environment and fiscal policy as well.
...It is likely that if and when Congress responds to other challenges Obama has given it -- to restructure financial regulation; to rationalize energy, education and environmental policies; and to slow the ruinous growth of entitlement programs -- the pattern will be the same: incremental steps leading to possible future breakthroughs.
For a nation whose culture has produced a psychology demanding instant gratification, this politics of deferred satisfaction is something not easily learned. In his political career, Obama has been a perfect embodiment of an impatient generation. He rocketed through his few years in Springfield to capture a Senate seat from Illinois, then quickly became impatient with the Senate's ways and set his cap for the presidency.
But somewhere, he has learned the virtues of patience when it comes to governing.
...a president who is not driven by a compulsion to provide instant gratification for his constituents must also cultivate adult patience in them. My bet would be that Obama has that capacity."
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