From the main site of our lovely community (truth is I went because OS was down) I read a blog on the Obameter Diary.  After popping over to Brainwrap's diary on Daily KOS (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/17/20467/1935/680/698009) I decided to vist the real deal. 

 PolitiFact, a part of the St. Pete Times, is tracking the campaign promises of President Obama.  They shifted through his speeches, interviews, and campaign appearences and tallied 510 promises he made.

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/browse/

 Now, I know we're keeping President Obama to an higher standard but even I was flabbergasted at the extent they went to.  The rate everything in five categories: No progress, In progress, Promise Kept, Compromise, Promise Broken.

 It's all good though because it's pretty interesting.  They don't seem to add weight to the promises...for instance closing GITMO is the same as getting the First Dog but that's okay.  

I think I'll be following Brainwrap's diary since he provides statistics.  You know those pretty numbers that can be twisted to mean pretty much anything?  Only he provides caveats so you know how he's calculating  his numbers. 

He also has a poll going as to how fast it'll take President Obama to fulfill all his goals.  This is interesting because if our President maintains his current progress he'll be done in about six months. 

 Yup, the headline on the article says "16% of campaign promises kept in the first 1.9% of his term."

H.R. 1 aka The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act advanced Obama's agenda by about 50 promises.  Aside from immediatly signing the order to close GITMO and resolving SCHIP and the Lily Ledbetter law he's trucking away.  

PolitiFact notes that since President Obama signed SCHIP and the Lily Ledbetter law without the five days of transparency he broke that promise.  Since HR1 was up for five days I think going forward he'll keep that promise so I hope that gets updated. He just finished his first month so I'm sure all that was still getting setup.

I would love Nate Silver over at www.fivethirtyeight.com to get in on this too.

Siobhan

Kabul, Afghanistan 20 February 2009, 1356pm