It's the Obama I voted for: Obama the Pragmatist.

Now, Rush Limbaugh was talking about how "the media is just beside itself over how pathetic [Obama's] performance was yesterday" in the news conference about the tax compromise. And Rush is saying that Obama "knows full well that he had a meltdown yesterday."

Here's the video:



Rush says he can tell that Obama...

... has been festering, this has been effervescing inside him, that he's unappreciated, that he did something nobody else has done, and they wanted it for a hundred years, and by golly he got it.  He didn't get everything he wanted, he got 99%, and they don't appreciate me,...

So he's essentially telling them, look, I gotta back off on some of this stuff if we're to get anything done.  And that infuriated 'em even more because the question was, "Where you gonna go to the mat, what are your core values?" And he withered.  He caved.  And that made them even angrier.  I know it's hard to comprehend.  But these people on the left, they are truly enraged.  It is a lifestyle.  They are never happy.  I looked at the comments on the Daily Kos website, they are hilarious.  But they're real.  And it went on for ten pages.  I mean they are just fit to be tied because Obama is not what they thought he was....

I must say... I watched that video clip earlier today, and I liked the Obama I saw there. You could say he's beaten down, but there's fire there. It's the fire of pragmatism. I see a sensible and strong man. I never believed in Obama the Messiah, and I fretted about the signs that he was a left-wing ideologue. But when it came down to a decision between Obama and McCain, in the midst of a terrible economic crisis, I put my trust in Obama. I said:

I worry about what awful innovations the new President will concoct in league with the Democratic Congress, but at this point, I'm more worried about McCain than Obama. 

I thought that Obama would have some independence from the Democrats in Congress and that he'd use his common sense and pragmatism to work out some solutions. The more he departs from left-wing ideology and struggles to get to good solutions, the more I like him.

When I watch that video, I don't see a melt-down at all. I see Obama coming into his own at last. I see the Obama I voted for.