Media commentators and Republican critics alike seem shocked – shocked, I tell you – that President Obama packed the stimulus bill with initiatives he promised during his campaign, like education, energy and health care.

What did they expect? That he would abandon his promises after he took the oath?

Rush Limbaugh actually suggested that – since John McCain won 46 per cent of the popular vote – Republican programs should constitute 46 percent of the stimulus.

Funny, I don’t remember Limbaugh suggesting in 2001 that Al Gore’s ideas should be slightly more than half of George Bush’s program.

Obama’s much-noted Aloha Zen always has masked an inner steeliness that continues to surprise Washington observers.

Maybe they’re used to Presidents Bush (43), Clinton and Bush (41) all abandoning their campaign promises they minute they moved into the White House.

The most recent President who really did what he said he would do was Ronald Reagan. He said he would cut taxes, and he did. (He also said he would cut spending, but he never did.)

Keeping campaign promises is not necessarily a presidential tradition. Note all the comparisons of Obama with Lincoln, FDR and JFK. Lincoln thought he could keep the union together without war. FDR’s New Deal was always a seat-of-the-pants mish-mash. JFK promised to close a missile gap that didn’t exist.

Obama did something strange in politics. He laid out a clear direction – one radically different from the course the country was on. He won a thumping victory. Now he seems determined to really do it.

Imagine that.

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