Oct 8 of 2008 I predicted -- right here on Huffington Post -- that Obama would have a great presidency. Not only do I stand by my remarks made then but reiterate them now in the light of today's historic health care bill's passage. I also hereby call out the Democratic Party doubters (from the left) of our president who have been so ready to dismiss him. Who is looking smart today?

Presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine.

Obama is one of the most intelligent presidents to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times. He's just outworked and outsmarted the far right and the far left. The Tea party troglodytes are reduced to yelling racial epithets from the sidelines. The Lefty critics have egg on their faces.

I say this as a white, former Republican active on the Religious Right before I got disgusted with right wing hate and changed my mind in the mid-80s, something I write about in my memoir Crazy For God .I say this as just another American watching his health care costs go stratospheric.

I say this as someone happy to have been called a fool for going out on a limb and declaring early in the primaries that, 1) Obama would win the nomination and then the election, and 2) that he was going to be amongst the greatest of American presidents.

You doubters beware. In November the Democrats will do much better than expected right now. You were wrong on health care. You are wrong about problems in November too. And while we're at it: Obama is not in the "pocket of Wall Street." He is not "betraying working America." What you saw today you'll see next in financial reform of banking laws. And you'll also see the economy turn around.

Obama puts service ahead of ideology. He also knows that to win politically you need to be tough. He can be. He just has been. Ask the Republicans today!

This is a man who does what works, rather than scoring ideological points. In other words, he is the quintessential non-ideological pragmatic American. He will (thank God!) disappoint ideologues and purists of the left and the right. He's already made them angry. And because he did that he just won a huge victory.

Obama has a reservoir of personal, physical courage that is unmatched in presidential history. Why unmatched? Take a look at the signs the Tea Party people carry. Take a look at the weapons they carry. As the first black president, Obama is in great physical danger from the seemingly unlimited reserve of unhinged racial hatred, and just plain unhinged ignorant hatred, that swirls in the bowels of our country. By stepping forward to lead, Obama has literally put his life on the line for all of us in a way no white president ever has had to do. His health care reform victory just made his life more dangerous. What personal risk have his critics taken? What courage was required to snipe from the sidelines?

Obama is the sober voice of reason at a time of unreason. He is the fellow keeping his head while all around him are panicking. Both the Left and Right not only blinked but ducked. Obama stood tall.

Obama brings a healing and uplifting spiritual quality to our politics at the very time when our worst enemy is fear. For eight years we were ruled by a stunted fear-filled mediocrity -- Bush -- who expanded his power on the basis of creating fear in others. Fearless Obama is the cure. He speaks a litany of hope rather than a litany of terror. Bush legalized torture. Obama just legalized health care for all. Which line would you rather stand in?

America is fighting its "Armageddon" in one fearful heart at a time. From the nutty Right we were told that Obama wanted to kill old people. From the nutty Left we were told Obama had "sold out to big pharma." What nonsense! A brilliant leader with the mild manner of an old-time matter-of-fact country doctor soothing a frightened child is just what we need.

The fact that our "doctor" is a black man leading a hitherto white-ruled nation out of the mess of its own making is all the sweeter and raises the Obama story to that of moral allegory. Literally we have a president that is now a healer of millions hitherto uninsured.

Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they've gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness. Doubters from the left and right just look cranky by comparison.

A hundred years from now Obama's portrait will be placed next to that of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Long before that we'll be telling our children and grandchildren that we stepped out in faith and voted for a young black man who stood up and led our country back from the brink of an abyss.

"So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause."

If I were an American, the passing of this bill is something that I would be crying over.

Obama is one of the most intelligent presidents to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times. He's just outworked and outsmarted the far right and the far left. The Tea party troglodytes are reduced to yelling racial epithets from the sidelines. The Lefty critics have egg on their faces.

It isn't really his fault though. He's just been made president at one of the worst possible times to be made president.

Well, we can only  wish that Mark Steyn is wrong.

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Ah.. but if only the situation now was anything like that of the Civil War; and strongly, directly influencable via government intervention. Obama is going to foot the blame for this run away carriage, regardless of how much he contributes to it being buggered up or not.

Maybe there are things he can do; but mostly he has proven himself on most fronts to be 'business as usual'. But you can keep your fantasy, your fantasy of being rescued by a 'handsome' black mulatto, burning strongly within your own mind. Maybe he will summon a Djinn.

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Maybe he's not so completely consumed by his own hubris as to expect it; the question more is whether or not he cares.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace‹business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering....

They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.

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Impossible. I am a bonafide grade seven zoosexual

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I agree. The only problem about this approach is that it requires patience;

like trying to get my 1979 Ford ute to start up as I prepare to make my way home to the local caravan park.

Because, you know. There's plenty of us here too.