"You could imagine a lot of presidents more dogmatically liberal than Obama, but I wonder whether there are a lot of plausible hypotheticals in which they amass more liberal achievements than Obama. At the executive level, it might be the case that being too liberal is a liability to, well, liberalism." —Ezra Klein
This is quite possibly a nominee for quote of the year. Despite the ongoing "Obama should [insert recommendation for him to be a loudmouth here]" advice, the fact remains that 2009 boasts a solid list of progressive achievements. Surely not the full list, and there have definitely been setbacks too, but you can't deny that there have been a lot of wins for liberalism.
In a bigger sense, there's a book to be had about this concept, and I've been trying to wrap my head around this for years: Why are liberals, with our intellectualism and so forth, unable to outsmart conservatives and win more often?