Gee, anyone who becomes president has to deal with a lot. What? They want he should not do his job?

People will always look for something to complain about, and once a meme gets going in the media it is hard to stop. But if this is all they can dredge up to go after Obama, then he's doing a pretty good job.

And for issues like health care, it really is a question of "if not now, when?" The hard times are going to be with us for awhile and Obama waits for a more serene time, it would probably be a few years. And those are a few years too late to start dealing with these critical issues.

If the Depression had ended in 1935 due to FDR's intensive focus on near term goals, Galston's argument would have had more force. It would also have had more force if Hitler had come to power in 1925 and invaded Poland in 1931 and FDR's intensive focus on domestic policy had had no adverse consequences. Oh, and it would also have more force if almost everything having to do with the economy wasn't several orders of magnitude less complex and interrelated in FDR's day.

The truth is is that the Beltway MSM crowd cannot accept, either emotionally or intellectually, the concept of a president who is immensely more intelligent and capable than they are. If they accept that, then it necessarily calls their entitlement to judge his performance into question. Being more intelligent and capable than he is, if the president has more balls in the air and reins in his hand than they can keep track of, ipso facto it means he's doing too much. No other possible explantion is possible.

It's not unrelated to the reason that they are so utterly baffled and bemused by integrity and civic-mindedness.

Perhaps Mr Lauer believes that Obama needs is his own ranch in Crawford where he can spend as much time as possible playing rancher while neglecting our national security threats, drowning cities and economic crises.

Obama IS doing WAY TOO MUCH!!!!
I mean everytime you turn around, he's on television talking about this change or that change. He's signing bills into law, and signing executive orders and making speeches!

My God, the speeches!!!

I mean there are words and then there are "just words." During the campaign, his speeches could be categorized as "just words." Now, his words have real impact and consequence. In fact, they are not even "words," they are whole sentences and paragraphs! And, to make matters worse, they MAKE SENSE!!! What are we to do with that? Words, sentences and paragraphs that make sense.

Then there is his handling of the government. He's out there hiring people. He's making decisions on domestic policy, and decisions on foreign policy, and using BIG, BIG, BIG NUMBERS! So it's not just words, sentences and paragraphs, he's also using numbers!!!! NUMBERS!!!

He's doing things to create jobs. He's doing things to create change. He's changing healthcare. He's changing CAPITALISM AS WE KNOW IT!!!!

Now, I know the President is supposed to do things while he is in office. But isn't he supposed to wait during his first term because he has to be re-elected for his second term and wait until after the last set of mid-term elections in, say 2014, to even think about doing stuff???

What is Obama thinking? That's he's a real President and has to get stuff, a lot of stuff done in a hurry before the country goes swirling down the drain? Is that what he thinks?

We are doomed.

We are doomed to succeed.

The Republicans have figured out that they have a pretty nice little racket going: They get into office, destroy the economy with reckless tax cuts and a devil-may-care approach to regulation, and then, when the voters finally catch on, they leave the Dems with the job of cleaning up the mess they made -- which in turn makes it practically impossible for a Democratic president to achieve any real progressive objectives, like universal health care coverage.

Obama is signaling that he ain't going to play that game. Good for him.

I think the subtext of this meme is that he's doing too much for them to keep track of. That Obama has the stones to pick smart people and trust them to get things done is anathema to the MSM sensibilities.

The upside for Obama is that it forces the media to play catch-up continuously.

The Republicans aren't capable of responding to more than one issue at a time. And even they must dimly realize that they would look ridiculous if they said it was unfair of the President to do so much they couldn't keep up with him. Hence, for the good of the country the President has to stop doing so much. Of course, the truly appalling aspect is the behaviour of the MSM. Somebody should get a collection of pictures from icanhascheezurger of cats begging for tummy rubs and re-label them with media names, starting with David Cregory.

of cats begging for tummy rubs and re-label them with media names, starting with David Cregory.

The LOL catz are too damn cute to relabel with names from the MSM.

Lets photo shop the entire GOP as the clowns they are - big red noses, big white faces with big cigars stuck in the middle of them...

If not now, when?

The next four years will fly by like the terms of all other administrations. Every day of "tomorrow" just facilitates the status quo and validates previous activity, which has ultimately been ... nothing.

TheraP is correct.
Yes. We. Can.

We've just become used to morons in high places ... you know, like Bush and ALL THE FUCKING BANKERS.

Good critique of the Galston essay. To which I would add, that precisely because Congress is more divided than it was during Roosevelt's day (not to mention as Matt did, that it deals with a broader range of issues), it is a tactical plus to address in some fashion and in a public way, the host of problems we face

Cross-cutting cleavage (a post FDR concept). Obama creates more opportunities for coalitions of varying composition and thus improves his position with Congresss

Secondly, as I have also pointed out before, Obama, by conciously pursuing a "broad outline" approach to legislation, fosters Congressional ownership of solutions which both enhances their approval ratings with the American people and avoids the very mistake that proved a disaster to the Carter presidency (I was there...Working for a Dem Senator)

I think the problem is not with Obama, it's with commentators and Republicans who do not have his intellectual bandwidth, and who are used to dealing with a president who didn't challenge intellectually in any way. Republicans are used to just repeating a few simple ideas to defend Bush; now they have to think.

The only way to make any successful overachiever look bad is to focus on how much they tend to take on.

Obama's ALWAYS multi-tasks gracefully, and tends to dot his I's and cross his T's to a T, so "they" have no other recourse but to make that his fault.

Do I smell a Rove?

Turn their strengths into their weaknesses, at least in the public mind? Now Obama's TOO efficient?

It may not fool most of us reading this blog, but the Palinites and The Lump's Lemmings are so desperate to find fault with Obama and his leftist minions, they will take any lead they are given, even if it drives them right over the cliff.

Anyone else here got a suspicion that there are politically conservative super-rich "elements" (Mellon-Scaiffe?) who are willing to take a big hit on their billions just to promote their political prejudices?

Would they game the system, especially via Wall Street, just to make Obama and the Democrats look bad?

S'cuse me for paranoia, but every time the Dow dips, I get a funny feeling some of those who just lost all those big bucks are elated, because they believe it reflects on Obama, and even if it doesn't, they own enough dead-tree media to inject the idea into the ignorant public's psycho psyche.

The Merchant of Venice; what mattered more, his precious ducats or his personal pound-of-flesh revenge?

My tinfoil deerstalker is all atingle.

It's been said above, but not enough: the meme that this is all too much to handle only makes sense when compared to the recent decider-in-chief who found it challenging to do any one thing, never mind several of them at once.

Remember the mantra "no one could have foreseen that scenario" in response to any emergency or challenge? He was speaking for himself. Now we have someone who cannot only see things coming but is doing things to address them as well as dealing with the crises he and we inherited. We have an adult as president, not a whiny 13-year-old.

Not only do must we do these things, but we actually are able to work on them! Wow, can you believe it, Republican apologists?

Previous President: Pea Brain

Current President: Big Brain

Matt Lauer: Go Fuck Thyself.

Amazing what one has time to do when clearing brush in Crawford isn't allowed first priority.

To bad we can't get an entirely new crew of TV pundits every four years along with a new Administration. The tired old gasbags are only concerned with camera time and finding fault rather than knowledge based on research and solutions. One of elements that makes Rachael Maddow effective is that she has thoroughly researched her material and she presents new points of view from new voices. Ed Schultz hosted 1600 Penn Ave yesterday and covered more completely than anyone on TV the Free Choice Bill, as well as other issues.

Hmmm. So, President Obama is being tracked by much of the media on his first hundred days in office (the implication being that he has only one hundred days to prove himself successful) and then we have much of this same media now asking over and over and over and over again if Obama is trying to do too much.

As they say in court, objection your honor, asked and answered. I mean really, you have these so called balanced panels on news shows and then ask the question about Obama doing too much and Obama supporters say no and Obama detractors say yes. Gee, that's not predictable or anything. It's like my teenage son asking me if I would be OK if he stayed out with his friends until 4:00 AM. Can anyone predict my answer to the question (please leave out the blue words ;)).

The fact that this is even a meme is disturbing. Like the President isn't supposed to do everything to fix this economy for the short and long term. Doing one thing at a time is not only WRONG it's not the only way to go to truly change this country for the better.

The Bush administration used a torrent of lies to distract media and voters for at least 7 years before the majority caught on. They threw out so many lies at once (No, it's not raining outside.) that there was no way to focus on any one mendacity.

The Obama administration is doing something similar without the dishonesty. I call it "throw them another hissing cat". If they keep pushing big agenda items out at the GOP, no one issue will have any traction.

Might get some good stuff done too.