Lincoln wasn't great from the get-go; neither was FDR. This perspective places their final accomplishments as if they were enacted on day one! As if!

In the period between his election and his inauguration, Lincoln was furiously criticized by those within his own party for acting like...Buchanan! Much of what he had to say in that period certainly sounded like Buchanan. And let's not forget about how long he pussy-footed about converting the cause from defending the Union to abolishing slavery. And let's not forget his wonderful track record picking generals to lead the Army of the Potomac. And let's not forget about his willingness to nullify a part of the Constitution (writ of habeus corpus). As for his domestic policies of land for labor and a transcontinental railroad and land-grant colleges, that had been the standard Whig agenda for years, and with Democrats conveniently absent, passed easily.

We rightly honor Lincoln as our greatest President, but let's be honest in our assessment --

• Master of the language -- both Inaugurals, The Gettysburg Address, The Emancipation Proclamation
• Singleness of purpose -- prosecuting the Civil War

Lincoln was, above all else, a master politician, who knew that you cannot push people faster than they will go.

Meanwhile, FDR was a temporizer, too. Think how long he took to confront the looming threats of Nazism and Bushido Japan. He went cravenly along with the isolationists until 1940. His celebrated 100 Days, when examined closely, resembles throwing cooked pasta on the ceiling to see what sticks. Much of his legislative agenda sailed through, because the Republicans were thoroughly beaten and cowed. But even he dropped pushing universal health insurance as part of the Social Security Act because he was afraid the AMA would scuttle it all. He listened to the 'deficit hawks' of his day and earned a sharp recession in 1937. And after the Packing the Supreme Court fiasco of that year, his domestic policy was essentially dead.

FDR, too, was a master politician, great with the language, who trimmed his sails on more than one occasion.

To judge Obama, not even one year in, by Lincoln's four or FDR's 12 years, strikes me as both unfair and unwise. For one, he faces an opposition far more organized than either Lincoln or FDR did. Lincoln had the good fortune of a much smaller Congress with the South departed and the firing on Fort Sumter hardened Northern opinion. FDR stepped in after four years of economic disaster had traumatized the country and had serious political opposition from the Left.

Obama came into his crisis in 1930 and averted Great Depression 2.0, but the average citizen won't give him credit for that. He faces an opposition that uses the filibuster, or threats thereof, in ways unheard of before. Look, even many of his routine appointments of federal judges are being held up for months. While his health insurance reform and his climate change legislation are no great shakes, they do, in fact, move the chalk down field. The furious opposition of the Right is rooted in their awareness that should he succeed at even these modest achievements, they will find themselves as neutered as the Conservatives in Britain, who have acquiesed to the welfare state there.

Have some patience my friend.