Washington Post

With Republicans poised to take control of the House, Barack Obama has come to the end (at least, until 2013) of the progressive-reform period of his presidency. It's time to ask how he measures up when compared with his Democratic predecessors who had a kindred opportunity.

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President Obama is meeting with the chief executives of leading U.S. corporations Wednesday, plainly seeking a rapprochement with American big business. What's by no means apparent, however, is whether our leading CEOs have any intention of reaching a rapprochement with the American people.

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Changelessness we can't believe in. Not much of a slogan, I admit, but a pretty fair statement of where we're at after the president's tax deal with congressional Republicans.

It's not that the deal doesn't have some good features. Extending unemployment insurance, cutting payroll taxes, and preserving tax credits for college tuition and low-paying jobs are all imperative, even if some provisions, such as continuing to provide unemployment insurance amid the deepest and most intractable recession since the '30s, shouldn't be in question in any nation with a claim to moral leadership (or even moral adequacy).

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Although the Senate is normally an institution with its head in the 18th century - and that may be unfair, I know, to the 18th century - it actually acknowledged modernity on Tuesday, if only for a moment. By passing a bill that substantially strengthens food safety regulations, it recognized that the food we eat is produced both industrially and globally. Whether its newfound grasp on reality extends to other key pending legislation, the Dream Act and repealing "don't ask, don't tell," we'll know soon enough.

On Tuesday, though, the world's greatest deliberative body actually concerned itself with facts - such as, almost 20 percent of food consumed in the United States, including three-fourths of our fish, is imported from other countries. But the Food and Drug Administration has lacked authority and staff to inspect more than one pound in 1 million of food imports. The just-passed bill will give the FDA authority to set standards for how fruits and vegetables are grown abroad and to increase its inspection of food processing plants in other countries. It also mandates increased inspections of domestic food processors and allows the FDA to recall unsafe food directly from stores.

It may be turkey week in America, but it's goose month in Germany. In many restaurants, you can get goose in your salad and goose in your soup to go with your goose entree. Diners fairly honk their way through November.

But then, Germans have something to honk about. Germany's economy is the strongest in the world. Its trade balance - the value of its exports over its imports - is second only to China's, which is all the more remarkable since Germany is home to just 82 million people. Its 7.5 percent unemployment rate - two percentage points below ours - is lower than at any time since right after reunification. Growth is robust, and real wages are rising.

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A lot of Democrats deserve a share of the blame for the shellacking they took last week, beginning with a president who shied away from defending his achievements. Nancy Pelosi, however, should not be high on that list.

Consider, for starters, the No. 1 cause of the Democrats' defeat: the economy. The Democrats, one prominent critique holds, didn't do enough to reduce unemployment and, instead, spent eons working on bills - however commendable they may have been - that weren't directed at ending the recession.

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