As an average bear, I have the luxury of noticing this:

•members of various minority special interest groups have little real viable political choice but to pick between the 2 finalists

• these special interests cannot reasonably expect that if their candidate wins, he or she will bake the bread to the letter of their recipe, or even close to that letter. And you won’t get the whole loaf, either.

• So, you can either like half-loaves, quarter loaves, eighth-loaves, and sympathetic nods (whose value is a mileage issue), or you can lump them. You don’t actually get to bake your bread, just eat what is ultimately delivered. If you are very good and circumstances allow, you may get to help decide, let’s say, how many grains of salt go into the dough. Your input may not be heeded when it comes to yeast, flour, water, temperature, and so on.

Now, I’ll cheerfully acknowledge that the fine details of these points are quite debatable. Nevertheless, I maintain that at the end of the day they are basically true. Presidents and their supporting cast of congresscritters are elected via uneasy and in fact somewhat temporary coalitions of various interest groups.

Personally, I have little doubt where President Obama’s sympathies lie. I think he’s a modern guy who believes that life is just way too short for us to waste time wringing our hands about how granting full tolerance to gay and lesbian lifestyles might conceivably harm our culture as a hole. History so far sems to have demonstrated that as Americans they deserve all the same civil rights and civil protections and access to civil institutions that heterosexuals have.

I believe that he also knows that he does not have the luxury to act on such beliefs to the extent that they could adversely affect his ability to keep together coalitions needed to make progress on other issues that he also feels are important. Measured against one’s ideals, such positioning may seem quite unsatisfactory, unsavory even. But it’s how powerful adults in politics manage to get things done here and there, pushing various balls a hair closer to goals that they think are worthwhile.

That’s how we got “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the first place. This is a policy that is any idealist’s nightmare. In my mind it’s a Bill Clinton signature approach, and compared to the previous policy, it represented an improvement. It was a quarter loaf that displeased every faction.

Now, along comes Obama, anointed as by far the greatest true hope for progressives of the last half-century. Well, sorry folks, but anyone who really let themselves believe that Barack Obama was going to turn water into wine was always going to end up sorely disappointed. This is not a fantasy nor a hollywood scripted movie. It’s 21st century politics. Not beanbag.

So be grown-up and unsurprised if the only adjustment is to something like don’t ask, TRY not to tell.