My friend Jane Deaton takes exception when people compare organizing Democrats to herding cats. She says it's disrespectful to cats. She may be right.

No doubt, Barack Obama agrees with Jane - particularly with regard to progressives.

When asked about raising the ire of progressives over the tax cut deal he struck with Republicans lawmakers, he complained:

"This is the public option debate all over again. So I passed a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats have been fighting for for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn't get, that maybe would have affected a couple of million people, even though we got insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for a hundred million people, that somehow that's a sign of weakness."

Obama's exasperation is understandable, but so is the frustration of the Democratic Party's progressive base. We made our compromise on health care when we supported him in 2008. Most Democrats, especially liberals, preferred single-payer health care to Candidate Obama's plan.

The public option, the component which seemed to hold the most promise for bending the arc on health care costs, was the least we wanted to settle for. Progressives might have started with single payer and settled for the public option. The president started with the public option and seemed only too willing to bargain it away.

Moreover, we were out in front on this issue. We circulated petitions, contacted our congressmen and organized public forums while, for the most part, our most eloquent advocate remained in the background. The man who inspired us in 2008 was strangely silent until the very end of the process.

That perception persists. Obama has seemed less than out in front on health care for 9/11 first responders, on the closing of Guantanamo, on the Clean Energy Jobs and Environmental Act and on the Dream Act. On so many issues that he campaigned on, his engagement has been all but imperceptible. Obama referred to the extension of tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans' "holy grail" and in the same press conference dismissed progressives by declaring, "I won't be held to some abstract ideal."

There's nothing abstract about defending the interests of the many from the exploitation of the few. It's who we are; it's who he is. Not only is that tax cut extension unlikely to create jobs, it unnecessarily raises the deficit and disproportionately burdens working people for the benefit of people who are doing just fine.

Throwing his base under the bus will in no way help the president make that case to the American people over the next two years. Some fence-mending is in order.

Likewise, progressives should stand back and consider the big picture. This administration can list averting a depression, saving the American auto industry, financial reform, health care reform, increasing Pell Grants for college students, removing restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, increasing benefits for military personnel and, more recently, overseeing the repeal of "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" among its many accomplishments. No administration in history has managed as much in two years.

Grassroots progressives allowed themselves to be outworked in the midterms. We share in the responsibility for our predicament. Those who imagine that someone else might deal more effectively with Republicans in 2012 are likely to accomplish little more than delivering the executive branch to people determined to undo all that we've fought so hard for.

A little perspective is in order.

Jane's right. We're not like cats; lately we're more like rabid ferrets.

We need to calm down and reassess. Obama must communicate better with the people who put him in office, and progressives must consider carefully where our best chances for moving the country forward lie.

He must again be the change we've been waiting for.

Kevin Smith lives in Aberdeen. Contact him at kevinasmith@gmx.com.