Obama’s Realism: The First 1,000 Days

And then we came to the end of the longest presidential race in history, and all were happy. Amen.

I’m beginning to warm to President-Elect Obama. The campaign that gloried in poetry has already begun to plot its governance in prose, beginning with a mildly worded restraining order against its more imaginative fanbase:

Mr. Obama’s advisers said they were startled, if gratified, by the jubilation that greeted the news of Mr. Obama’s victory in much of the United States and abroad. But while the energy of his supporters could be a tremendous political asset as Mr. Obama works to enact his agenda after taking office in January, his aides said they were looking to temper hopes that he would be able to solve the nation’s problems or fully reverse Bush administration policies quickly and easily, especially given the prospect of a deep and long-lasting recession.

“We have talked about this,” said Robert Gibbs, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “It’s important that everybody understands that this is not going to happen overnight. There has to be a realistic expectation of what can happen and how quickly.”

Ditto on pulling troops from Iraq, or hunting down Osama bin Laden, etc. etc. Talk is not of the first 100 days of the administration but the first 1,000, which is sobriety I can believe in.

Meanwhile, the Onion investigates where diehard Obama supporters go from here: