Slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner

I've written a lot about my grumpiness with Obama. I think he's a wimp, too willing to compromise, not willing to stand up for the progressive cause, not bringing the creators of the financial collapse to justice, and perhaps a bit too beholden to possible corporate backers. There is also the matter of continuing some of the human rights abuses of Bush. The only reason why I plan to vote for Obama this year is he isn't GOP (and I'm much more interested in defeating the GOP). I'll let you browse my writings for other complaints.

Andrew Sullivan, writing the cover story for Newsweek, thinks I -- and liberals in general -- don't appreciate what we have. As for conservatives, they don't understand Obama either. Thus Obama will likely beat them in November.

Sullivan is conservative and gay, but not the kind that would be a member of Log Cabin Republicans. However, he understands that we can't let the current GOP win. It's good to have Obama ready to take them on.

Sullivan goes over Obama's record and says the prez. actually accomplished a great deal in three years and there is much in these accomplishments for the country to appreciate. In just gay issues, support for gay marriage has increased dramatically (but what did he do to make it happen?), DOMA won't be defended, gays now serve openly in the military, federal gov't hiring policies now protect gay workers, and the State Department has made gay rights a part of human rights.

Obama achieved some of those gains by not caring who got the credit and doing it in a way that can't be easily undone. On gays in the military:

But what he was doing was getting his Republican defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to move before he did. The man who made the case for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was, in the end, Adm. Mike Mullen. This took time—as did his painstaking change in the rule barring HIV-positive immigrants and tourists—but the slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner in which it was accomplished made the changes more durable. Not for the first time, I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does.

And on Obama's method of operation:

And what have we seen? A recurring pattern. To use the terms Obama first employed in his inaugural address: the president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider. This kind of strategy takes time. And it means there are long stretches when Obama seems incapable of defending himself, or willing to let others to define him, or simply weak. I remember those stretches during the campaign against Hillary Clinton. I also remember whose strategy won out in the end.

As for upholding the progressive cause, Sullivan says Obama never pledged to do that.

Sullivan has some good points, and it is good to see a summation of Obama's record and an explanation of what Obama is trying to do. However, I'm not completely convinced. Sullivan doesn't provide an explanation of what is going on with those human rights abuses.