Many television shows and newspapers, not to mention our beloved Open Salon, are featuring Obama's achievements, or lack thereof, over the past year.  As I sit down to write my own account, I realize that I am sitting in a circle of anger.  It is everywhere and never more clearly expressed than in the outcome of the Massachusetts election.  Everyone is furious with the government, incandescent with the banks, and frightened about the future, which mutates into anger.  I am angry too but not at Obama.

I voted for Obama, donated to his campaign, and did everything I could from where I live in the UK to see him elected.  I stayed up all night to watch his acceptance speech, tears of joy and pride streaming down my face.  I will never forget it.

One year on things are not as exciting.  He has done some things I disagree with and I am troubled by doubts about whether he will be able to accomplish all he wants to and fulfill the promise invested in him as the first black president.  But at this early juncture I have not given up on him and I am seriously annoyed with those people who have.  They are damaging him and, in my opinion the country, with their spectacular loss of faith.  The two opposing sides in American politics have at least one quality in common, their eagerness to criticize the President.

The far right, the tea-baggers, hold one view.  I am angered by the tea-baggers and frustrated by their inability to use or respond to reasoned argument rather than irrational fear in matters related to the President.  I am disgusted, embarrassed, and amused by their confusion when shouting about socialists and communists while carrying placards depicting Obama with a Hitler moustache.  Hitler was a fascist.  Why not a Stalin moustache since he was the communist?  The reason is, for the tea-baggers the issue is not actually about socialism or communism, instead it is about name calling and "bad guys."  Everybody knows Hitler was a bad guy, right?

At best, the far right are driven by the urge to protect what they have and to keep anyone else from getting it.  At worst, they are exceptionally exercised about the actions of this president, not just because they fear his perceived socialist tendencies but also because of his race.  I see it in last summer's all-white mobs disrupting town meetings, their contorted faces suffused with rage out of all proportion with disagreements over socialism or capitalism.  Manipulated by media hate-mongers whose financial interests depend on maintaining the frenzy, their ignorance is a force to be reckoned with.

Repugnant as I find these people, my outrage is greater for those who actually voted for Obama and who have now decided they made a mistake.  These people, the turncoats of the angry left, are like children who have thrown their toys out of the crib.  They are in the throes of a temper tantrum because, in their view, we have not gotten the level of change we were promised.  As with all childish matters, some of this disapppointment could have been avoided if expectations had been managed properly.

What major changes were they realistically expecting to be achieved at the end of twelve months?  Our country is like a massive oil tanker turning very slowly.  More importantly, what alternative would they prefer?  We know who the tea-baggers want in the White House, but who is it the angry left would prefer to do the job?  If the far left withdraws support fom Obama, who will benefit?

The tea-baggers and the angry left are both being unreasonable.  Our country was poised on the brink of another great depression when Obama took office.  The Clinton era budget surplus had been transformed into a massive deficit by the Bush administration, the banks were failing, and we were fighting two wars.  Addressing these issues takes time and like it or not, politics, a lousy game that the President has got to play. 

Healthcare reform seems destined to disappoint, big business interests eclipse those of the average voter, and people are justifiably angry.  Bankers who brought us to our financial knees don't seem to be paying the price and both sides, the baggers and the turncoats, blame Obama for that.

It rankles to see our tax money going to support the banks whose reckless lending caused our economic woes.  We all want to see them called to account instead of getting away with it and their obscene bonuses.  But ask yourself, would it be worth it to see the bankers go down if it meant that when you visited your ATM you could not get access to your money?

Early in the crisis when some UK bankers saw what was happening, they reportedly phoned home and told their loved ones to get to a cash machine as soon as possible and withdraw the maximum.  Although most bank deposits in the United States are guaranteed by the government, how long could you have held out without cash in hand?  Would you have had a full tank of gas and groceries in the refrigerator?  If not, how would you have gotten those things and what kind of widespread panic would such a scenario have caused?  That situation would have been the reality of not bailing out the banks.  

The possibility of health care reform seems ever more remote.  The US has never had universal health care provision and the challenge to implement it has stymied past presidents since Harry Truman.  The plan we are going to get, if it is not scuppered by the Massachusetts election result, is far from perfect but it is a base on which to build and it will make life better for thousands of desperate people.

This country is not a monarchy with power vested in one person, nor is it a parliamentary democracy where the ruling party can call the shots.  Our government runs on consensus and painful as it is, that means compromise.  The status quo resists change and sometimes "kicking ass and taking names" does not achieve the desired effect.

I return to that election night and its sense of elation.  When Americans elected Barack Obama, we sent out a powerful message about ourselves to the rest of the world.  We can not afford to give up now on the message or the man.