Obama's stewardship so far...

Well, you have to realize that what he should have done, is mainly being
forwarded by pundits, economists and editorialist etc., none of whom are
in the "hot seat" so to speak. Obama is in the hot seat, he does have
his very own hands on the "levers of power".

That said, you have to remember that he is a "chief executive", not a dictator.
He doesn't get to pull those levers on his own, not if he wants to survive politically. Governing is an art! While economists can add things up, multiply and divide, to come up with answers that are true to the strictures of mathematics, a President cannot do that. If you put a dollar into a change
making machine, you expect to get four quarters back, but if you put that same dollar into a political machine, there's no way to tell what you will get back.

We have a representative form of government, that requires the parties holding power, to accept a solution, whatever that solution might be. Before it can be made operational legislation. If one party goes absolutely insane, under our system of government, that does not mean that they can be ignored or over ridden.
They are elected officials who are presumed to represent the people who put them in office. Those people are American citizens and they are entitled to their views, just the same as anyone who has successfully selected official representation.

So, we had the crisis and Obama had to give in enough to get some of what he wanted. But, had he not done so, we'd have had a dictator in all but name.
If republicans don't like what representation they're getting from their elected official, then that's something they'll have to do something about! It is not for Obama to dictate the course for the country. He can try to persuade, try to convince, try to reason. But, if all of that fails to result in a turn in the views of the opposition, he has to navigate the "blockade". Not to have done so, we're pretty nearly all in agreement, would have had disastrous results.
Thus, like it or not, he had to take what "we the people" had forced on him.
Obviously "we the people" for some strange reason, did not speak loudly enough to back down the officials who, apparently, decided to steer their own course, apart from the people who elected them. This is not the first time we've seen the Republican party do this! So we should not be surprised to see it happen once again. "Wisconsin" anyone?

Part of the problem is the divisiveness. Because we are not all republicans, we don't write to republican officials, we write to democratic ones. That way each side is sort of inured against the oppositions opinions. That should change. I don't think any democratic official would dismiss out-of-hand letters written to them by republicans, I don't believe republicans would be able to do that either.
But it would give them all a better idea of how many citizens stand where and possibly why.

Obwon