PROMISES KEPT

I was listening to one of the radio wingnuts, maybe Jerry Doyle, and he claimed that Obama hasn't kept most of his relevant campaign promises. He said there were 510 total promises and I thought that someone must've been busy keeping track. Atrios noted that CNN said the same thing a few days ago, so this is probably a new wingnut meme.

It seems that a newspaper is behind the 510 number, according to Jamison Foser of Media Matters:

...PolitiFact.com, the St. Petersburg Times' political fact-checking operation, that it plans to closely track Barack Obama's progress in keeping his campaign promises is an encouraging sign that the news media will apply to Obama the kind of substantive scrutiny Bush too often escaped.

Unfortunately, PolitiFact's effort seems to lack a much-needed sense of perspective. PolitiFact has compiled a list of what it describes as 510 promises Obama made during his presidential campaign and plans to rate each a "Promise Kept," a "Promise Broken," or a "Compromise."

Let's take a look at some of what Obama has done so far:

- Plan to tighten up the idiotically loose financial system (NYT)

...many major companies and financial instruments now mostly unsupervised must be swept back under a larger regulatory umbrella, has been embraced as a guiding principle by the administration, officials said.

- End the ban on giving Federal money to international groups that provide true choice on reproduction to women (AP)

President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information—

- Announces plan to close Guantanmo within a year AND a halt to torture (Reuters)

President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered the closure of the Guantanamo military prison within a year and a halt to harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects, moving quickly to restore the U.S. image abroad.

- Met with his national security team to begin planning for withdrawing from Iraq (NYT)

On his first full day in office, Mr. Obama summoned senior civilian and uniformed officials to the White House to begin fulfilling his campaign promise to pull combat forces out of Iraq in 16 months. ... “I asked the military leadership to engage in additional planning necessary to execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq,” Mr. Obama said in a written statement after the meeting.

- Allow the states to set their own emissions standards (NYT)

President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday. ... Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.