Ahead of tonight's premiere of "Inside Obama's Presidency," FRONTLINE is bringing together a group of the nation's leading journalists for a conversation about Barack Obama.

We're asking them to discuss to what extent the president has met his stated goal of being a transformative figure in the mold of Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Roosevelt.

We'll be joined by:

Peter Baker, White House correspondent, The New York Times -- nyti.ms

Christina Bellantoni, politics editor, PBS NewsHour -- to.pbs.org

James Fallows, national correspondent, The Atlantic -- bit.ly

Michael Grunwald, senior national correspondent for Time and author of "The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era" -- bit.ly

Heidi Moore, U.S. finance and economics editor, The Guardian -- bit.ly

David Weigel, Slate political reporter -- slate.me

Thanks so much for including me in such a terrific group. It probably comes as no surprise that after writing a book about change in the Obama era, I think he’s already had a remarkably transformative presidency. In his first inaugural, he promised to create a “new foundation for growth” by reforming our energy, education, health care and economic policies. (His administration actually tried to make The New Foundation a kind of New Deal-style catchphrase, until Peter quoted Doris Kearns Goodwin saying it sounded like a girdle.) Well, Obama kept that promise.

He launched a quiet clean energy revolution. He engineered the most ambitious school reforms in decades. He’s achieving the dream of universal health insurance. And he has at least begun to rearrange the U.S. economy, with higher taxes for the very rich, lower taxes for everyone else, and aggressive investments in research, infrastructure, and other win-the-future stuff. He also helped rescue that economy from the worst freefall since the Depression; when he took office, it was crashing at a -8.9% annual rate and hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month.

Oh, by the way, Obama also ended the war in Iraq, took out bin Laden and most of al Qaeda’s leaders, allowed gays to serve openly in the military, enacted the biggest financial reforms since the Depression, saved the auto industry, and much more. And while he didn’t change the way politics is practiced in Washington--I'm sure we'll have more to say about post-partisan dreams--he may have built an enduring new political majority. Of course, he hasn't always communicated to the public that all this change was happening. It's funny: the rap on Obama in 2008 was that he was a words guy, a big hopey-changey talker. He's turned out to be more of a deeds guy. swampland.time.com

Thanks for doing this, what a terrific group to talk about an excellent piece of journalism.

I love the word "transformative," and think that's it's interesting it is mostly applied in a positive context. I'll have more to say about that shortly (juggling my posts here today with jury duty - yay civic duty!) but to start off I'd like to address the president as a politically transformative person.

Thanks for including me too - what a great and accomplished group to be part of. It's also a great topic. I consider Christina an American hero for doing this during jury duty! I am only balancing a couple of deadlines.

The word "transformative" is really key here. When it comes to the first time of Obama's presidency, the major issue I tend to think about it is the issue of the financial crisis and financial reform. Our financial system hit a point where it seemed like it would have to remake itself. Obama did well to have Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve; there's a lot of evidence that the willingness of the Federal Reserve to intervene in markets did a lot of good. But as to the actual transformation, there are a lot of people - including those who served in government - who think we blew it. Not all that much has changed, in reality. Skeptics think it's unlikely now that it will.

Greetings fellow panelists. I am sitting on a plane whose doors are about to close, so I will just post a brief hello now. Will respond to your initial entries as soon as I can.

My initial premise: as I argued a year ago in the Atlantic, theatlantic.com, no real-life human being comes to the White House with all the skills necessary fully to "succeed." The first term reveals the specific way in which a president will fail, and the important question at the end of the first term is whether he (eventually she) is getting better.

I argued, and believed, that Obama is getting better at this job. Will say more about that when I'm next able to connect.

On Michael G's opening entries: his book is of course the most careful and comprehensive argument for what the first term achieved -- the case for a "glass two-thirds full" perspective, more than "glass half full." What fascinates me here (and I urge all to read his book) is the enormous difficulty of assessing a president's effect and success in anything close to real time. The cliche example is Harry Truman: reviled when he left office, highly respected a generation later. Similarly with much of Ike's legacy. This has interesting implications for our discussion of Obama while he is in office. More on this anon.

And just to extend that previous point one more inch: To spend any time with U.S. history is to be reminded of how likely our in-the-moment, "who won the day?" perspectives are to being wrong -- or to seem wrong even to us a few months or years later.

Looking forward to rejoining you in a few hours.

When I hear "transformative," Glenn Beck's voice invades my skull. I remember Republicans and conservatives fulminating -- for four good years -- about an offhand comment the candidate-then-president made at one of his last 2008 campaign rallies. On election day, he said, we all could "begin the work of fundamentally transforming America." And his enemies saw that as a supervillain-esque revelation of a Socialist plan. I'd argue that their obstinate approach, which helped win the 2010 elections, allowed Obama to achieve more without their input. An Affordable Care Act with Mike Enzi's input would have been more modest; a stimulus with 80 Senate votes would have included less spending.

(I'm back for a short jury duty break!) For one, as Republicans liked to point out during his 2008 campaign, he was more liberal than most Democratic nominees. He hasn't governed that way, much to the chagrin of progressives. But his ideology alone is a transformative thing for the nation. The fact his candidacy motivated young people to participate in politics in new ways, well that's transformative too. And finally, he's inspired fierce opposition that still rages on today (see: washingtonpost.com). I am with Dave -- it's been stunning to see the anger out there directed at the president. And that's transformative too.

Hi there. Thanks for including me in this discussion. I think it will be transformative, or maybe just informative. Either way, it's a great group to be joining here.

Mike's book is a terrific read, especially for those making the case that this is a transformative presidency. And there are certainly things President Obama has done that are, or at least have the potential to be, transformative. I agree with Jim, though, that it's hard to say in the moment. You can imagine plenty of scenarios playing out over the next four years that will shape and even redefine our historic impression of Obama's presidency, for good or bad. We would have given very different assessments of Reagan in Jan 1985, Clinton in Jan 1997 and Bush in Jan 2005 than four years later, and especially 10, 20 years after that.

To Christina's point about him not governing as a liberal, I think that's an interesting question, and one often defined in different ways depending on individual perspectives and expectations. He may not be as progressive, or liberal or whatever label we want to apply, as some in his base would like him to be, but it seems at least arguable that he's the most progressive or liberal or whatever president since LBJ four and a half decades ago.

Mike suggests that Obama has launched "a quiet clean energy revolution" and links to his story on wind energy efforts. That's a shift, sure. As I'd been thinking about the small and large change the president has affected, I actually was thinking climate change measures must feel like the one that got away for Obama. It was one of his big pushes during his 2008 campaign, and from an outside perspective, little has happened. Yes, fuel standards are changing. Slightly. But incentives for green building, job training programs in an industry that could be growing and major legislation dealing with this has not materialized in any noticeable way. And that's so surprising to me given what seemed at one time like movement.

Surprise! I spend 99% of my flying life on United, in their thrall because of scores of trips to Asia over the years. So I am new to the world of inflight wifi, which I am now getting with Gogo on USAir. I feel like Rip Van Winkle.

On the subject of Obama as most "liberal" member of the 2008 Dem field: I've always been skeptical of that. I think it was an inference from (a) his having opposed the Iraq was in 2002, as HRC crucially did not; and (b) his being young, hip-seeming, and of course non-white. And maybe (c) knowledge that he was popular in Europe (!) and guess that he would do something like his Cairo speech.

In terms of actual leftism of policy, I think it was projected onto him rather than being there.

Now, it seems immigration reform is a much more likely prospect.

It's also worth noting that presidents we consider transformative often govern in transformational moments -- many of the presidents we consider "great" in fact presided in times of war or crisis. Teddy Roosevelt was a notable exception, which is why Bill Clinton often cited him as a model. Clinton rued the fact that he governed in relatively placid times because he felt it meant he wouldn't be viewed in that category. The last few years have felt tumultuous to us in the moment; will they look that way in 30-40-50 years? And will history judge that Obama rose to the challenge?

On CB's point about climate change: Yes, I think that was the major opportunity cost, and the major collateral damage, of his having decided to go for health care early on.

In last year's campaign, the GOP argued that Obama had failed to cope with the financial emergency because he was distracted by health care. I see it differently. I think that, in addition to putting out the financial fire, he could try ONE other big effort. The choices were: health care, climate, and immigration.

Personally I can't regret his having gone all out on health care. I think it really matters. But another four years of climate inaction, which legitimates inaction by all other countries, is a serious loss.

To PB's comment about "transformation" usually coming during crisis: Yes. FDR and Lincoln became who they were partly because of those times and crises.

The ideal "transformation" model for Obama, then, would be the person I think he should aspire to emulate: Eisenhower. Ike faced more crises as soldier than as president. But he "transformed" the country in some good ways with education and infrastructure and space. (And Little Rock.) BHO could do worse than to try to be another DDE.

Also, Ike wrapped up the Korean war and stayed out of Indochina....

Now disappearing again for a while.

Ron Brownstein has made the Eisenhower comparison, not in terms of ideology obviously but in terms of the transitional time in American history as well as leadership style. nationaljournal.com Ike and his "hidden hand" might have been the first practitioner of "leading from behind," for good or bad. Evan Thomas in his terrific new book, "Ike's Bluff," argues that it was for the good, that what some took as his passivity was in fact a shrewd way of manipulating events in his direction from behind the scenes. There's a debate about this, of course, but it's one that sounds familiar to those trying to assess President Obama's leadership. amazon.com

Thanks so much for the kind words about my book, Jim & Peter. As you both point out, in some areas it’s too early to say how Obama is transforming the country. For example, we don’t yet know how well Race to the Top and his other education reforms will work. The implementation of Obamacare is in its early stages, too. But change is clearly happening. And while Christina may be right that Obama’s efforts to deal with global warming haven’t been “noticeable,” he's probably done more to deal with the issue than anyone else on the planet.

That's largely because he passed the most ambitious energy bill in history: the stimulus. It poured $90B into green energy when we had been spending maybe $3B a year. (Warning: I'm a stimulus bore.) It did revive the wind industry from the dead. It also increased solar power over 1000%. It's jump-started the smart grid. It included unprecedented investments in electric vehicles (including a new domestic battery industry created from scratch), advanced biofuels, energy efficiency in every imaginable form, and cutting-edge research into the green technologies of tomorrow. And as long as I'm talking stimulus...

...the Recovery Act is also dragging our pen-and-paper medical system into the digital era, pouring $27B into health IT when we had been spending a few hundred million a year. It is revamping the New Deal-era unemployment insurance system. It launched a pioneering new homelessness prevention program that actually decreased homelessness during the worst downturn in 80 years. It included unprecedented investments in medical research, "green infrastructure," high-speed rail, and much more. And all that happened in his first month in office, which, incidentally, is one reason I'm not totally persuaded by Jim's thesis about Obama's growth in the job. I think he's basically the same guy he was in January 2009. It's the country that's changing.

I almost want to sit back and let Grunwald continue freestyling parts of the stimulus bill. But I'd add that Obama has transformed the country by *preventing* a few things from happening. Every since the 2008 primary, when he opposed the idea of a "gas tax holiday," he's resisted the resource rush that oil companies et al are champing at the bit fit - Alaska, gulf coast, offshore, Keystone. Many, many times, Republicans have sought to scandalize or roll back his EPA rules, and he hasn't. The actual environmental impact of all this is minimal, compared to, say, pollution in China. But we're getting eight years of pretty transformative regulatory policy.

I'll stop stim-styling, Dave, but I did want to push back against Jim's suggestion that Obama could have done a climate bill if he hadn't done health care, because I think it gets at the story of change in the Obama era. Obama didn't push for cap-and-trade because he didn't have the votes, and he didn't have a magic wand. As Christina pointed out he isn't a classic liberal; he's a left-of-center pragmatist, and bills that don't pass Congress don't make change. He didn't have 60 votes in the Senate for a bigger stimulus or a public option in health care or the DREAM act on immigration, which got 55. Presidents aren't all-powerful. The Woodward notion that they "work their will" like superheroes makes for good narratives but bad history.

But, Michael, there was a political calculation that went into prioritizing health care over cap and trade. It wasn't entirely correct - many Democrats believed that PPACA would become popular by the election. (Bill Clinton believed this!) Voters, theoretically, would have enjoyed new health care rights more than higher energy prices. The administration chose a pretty sneaky path, called out by Republicans, and walked away from the fight on the painful stuff in order to get what they could with regulation. So, transformative, but less so. And realistic.

Realistic is fair, Dave. But the Obama/Rahm strategy on cap-and-trade was: We don't have 60 votes or anything close to 60 votes. Period. The Obama/Rahm strategy on health care was: We'll do whatever is necessary procedurally (the endless Baucus slow-walk and the futile bipartisan outreach that appeased centrist Democrats) and substantively (the regulations you mention, the Cornhusker Kickback) to get 60 votes. It was tough politics but it worked, and policywise it should achieve almost all of the coverage expansion and insurance protections as well as some of the cost controls Obama wanted. That's transformative! Change doesn't mean perfect. Change means better.

Back for a few as we wait for the judge to deal with other matters...

And back to the politics -- I will say that non-white friends and sources of mine find the president's re-election has been a transformative moment for the nation. They've told me that a second term for the nation's first black president means more to them than the fact he won in 2008, and that it will have longer lasting effects for communities of color.

Which brings me to the over-hyped chatter of late about Obama being surrounded by white boys. That's not a new thing. His inner circle is dominated by men. But his top choices for Cabinet, administration & agencies have been transformative when it comes to the LGBT community, many ethnicities & a diversity of opinion.

Back on line.

To MG, I agree with you that Obama is the same basic person he was four years ago and probably ten years ago and maybe back in Jakarta. Certainly his presidential tone is consistent with the author of 'Dreams' long ago. Indeed I think an under-appreciated part of his rapid rise is the sense that he always presented the same face, tone, and personality. Not that he switches to someone different when he steps off stage.

But I think he has become better at the job, by which I mainly mean that he understands more clearly the vector-forces working for and against him. Four years ago, we spent a year in which he was welcoming "good ideas from all sides" on health care. He's not wasting his breath on that now.

To CB's point on the importance of RE-election: Yes. Obama's success in 2008 was by definition "historic" in a way that the 2012 race or any others can never be.

But the 2012 re-election may have been more *important.* Important in (a) allowing the health bill to take effect rather than be overturned, (b) giving Obama the chance (should he ever pay attention to it) to get his people on the courts, (c) affecting the plot line for which policies are responsible for what *should* be a better next-couple years economically, and finally (d) showing that the first win was not a guilt or mercy vote. "Firsts" of every kind matter, but the second, third, ... Nth establish the new norms.

Also agree with CB about the nuttiness of the current "too many white boys" theme:
- If McCain et al had not blocked Susan Rice, the top national-security team would have been *more* diverse in the second term
- DADT, DOMA, etc were very controversial four years ago, already becoming past-history now
- Kagan and Sotomayor

etc

Indeed, if I were an Alex Jones co-host I'd wonder whether the largely-phony "Obama's white dudes" story was viral marketing for Sotomayor's book, which arrived today. The fine NYT story on the controversy actually pointed out that, beyond the headline ("skews male") and the photo, Obama had restored gender hiring balance to Clinton levels, after a big drop-off during the Bush years. If we're talking about transformative change, that doesn't qualify at all. The really strange thing about this meme, though, is that Obama defined real change for women as the pay and birth control mandates in Lily Ledbetter and PPACA. Ask any conservative Catholic, and he'll say the latter was transformative.

Well, it's easy to dismiss the discussion about diversity and there's certainly a context that gets lost in the oversimplification of it. Annie Lowrey's story was nuanced and smart; she took the times to crunch the numbers. nytimes.com And certainly one of President Obama's legacies will be putting two women on the Supreme Court, matching the total from the previous two centuries combined. At the same time, there are a lot of Democratic women, including some who worked in this administration, who are pretty steamed about what they see as a male skew, particularly in national security/foreign policy. See Rosa Brooks at Foreign Policy: foreignpolicy.com

But beyond that, numbers aren't the entire story. Who does a president really rely on? Who is really in his (someday her) inner circle? That's largely been a boys club throughout history, with only a handful of exceptions. President Obama hasn't changed that.

Jim, after zero House Republicans voted for Obama’s jobs bill during a jobs emergency—and 7 GOP senators told his VP before he took office that they’d have to be against anything he was for—Obama had a pretty good sense what he was up against. The Obamacare listening charade was more about mollifying Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and other centrist Dems who were desperate for Republican cover. Obama has been solicitous of Republicans when he needed them to pass financial reform or keep the government running, but I think he’s always understood that as George Voinovich told me, if Obama were fer it, the R’s had to be agin it. And of course that limited Obama's ability to transform after the Party of No took back the House in 2010.

MG: On Obama as negotiator, one of my big themes is that *re*-election success or failure affects forever afterward the way we see a first term. (Cf Jimmy Carter, my one-time employer.) And possibly the Obama of TARP and the 2011 debt-ceiling fiasco and the long process of waiting for a health-care bill to emerge actually had the same tough instincts we're seeing in the current debt-ceiling standoff, and he just was facing different realities. But it certainly looks as if he has learned something about the opposition. And wouldn't we expect that?

to PB: As a wizened white guy myself, I have bad standing to speak on this issue. And of course the national security field is a bastion of male control. I guess I was struck by the disproportion of this reaction about Obama. Again:
- If they hadn't blocked Susan Rice, he'd have the same M/F lineup as with HRC
- The two human beings who seem to be closest to him, apart from his daughters, are his wife and Valerie Jarrett.
- Up and down the ranks of the administration, I'm not aware of one that is significantly more diverse than this one
- Plus legislation, executive orders, and appointments.

So he has been "disappointing" here, but compared to what other president?

Yes, but isn't that the point? Aren't we asking whether he's been an agent of change? In this area, not so much.

Jim wrote 3 words at the heart of the debate over Obama’s record: Compared to what? I’ve called him the counterfactual president. For starters, he inherited a calamity, and there’s no way to know how much worse things would’ve gotten without him. Larry Summers groused in December 2008 that FDR was lucky, because the US had 3 years of depression before he took over; everyone knew it was Hoover’s depression. Obama took over after the financial earthquake but before the economic tsunami reached shore. So his stimulus produced the biggest quarterly jobs improvement in 30 years, but the jobless rate still hit 10%. History doesn't always reward leaders for preventing disasters; if Obama had lost in 2012, he might be remembered like Jim's boss.

Obama's counterfactual problem extends to Libya, health care, financial reform, and Keeping Us Safe, too. (Remember when Keeping Us Safe was a big deal?) Of course, we can't run a double-blind study to see what would've happened to the U.S. without Obama--although, if you'll forgive the stimulus bore, Spain & Britain's double-dip recessions do suggest what would've happened if Republican austerity-pushers had gotten their way. Anyway, historians will argue this stuff forever. The good news for Obama is that in four years, if the economy is finally booming, he might be remembered like the last president who inherited a nightmare and laid the groundwork for sustained growth.

Greetings to my comrades. I have just returned from an off-topic event ("World Affairs Council of Florida: Future of China" etc) and so have missed the Frontline show. I will weigh in tomorrow with more about the goods and bads of Obama I and the prospects for Obama II. (I figure it is only appropriate to use Superbowl-style numerology. Think that in the future school children will not call these 'Roman Numerals.' They will call them 'Superbowl Numerals.' But that is not Obama's fault.)