"No, I am not optimistic about this either..."  I am not dreaming.  The poster after you who said that it is our fault for expecting every problem to be solved within a year--_he_ is dreaming, because Obama has not been forceful in moving toward solutions of any of these problems, and you can't solve major problems in 4 years if you don't move in the right direction on them at some fairly early point.

But there are only 4 scenarios for Obama's astonishingly inept term as president.

1.  The one I outlined;  he is trying to be overly centrist and safe until he gets this largest issue behind him, and then he will have more room to get more aggressive

2.  He _is_ a weak DLC Wall Street-owned centrist who lied about being far more Liberal than he is, because that is how one wins Democratic primaries, and we saw in him things we figured would be part of a Progressive platform, but which he wasn't as forceful in advocating as we read him to be 

3.  He is mistakenly trying to be what he considers the ultimate realist, thus being content to pass only thin wisps of reform because he (or Emanuel) doesn't feel that a stronger agenda is feasible in the current political climate

4.  He spectacularly underestimated this job.  He knew exactly how to campaign and organize and debate, but he is simply too weak to govern, so his only defense mechanism is to capitulate 90% of the way with whoever is the loudest voice in the room (i.e. Israel, Iran, Wall Street, the drug companies, John McCain, etc.) and try to haggle over the crumbs in the other 10%.

Those are the only reasons he could be acting this way.  #1 is the least likely option, but as I said, there was a slim chance that this could be his m.o.  And if he wants to remain safe and centrist for now, that would be consistent with his not fighting very hard for significant Health Care reform--rather, just wanting to get _something_ in the bag.