The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman has an interesting story premise — while Washington focuses on health care reform, Barack Obama has quietly pushed through Congress a series of new laws that have long been on the Democratic Party’s domestic agenda. The evidence for this, though, is pretty questionable. 

Weisman cites a rider to the defense spending bill that enables the Justice Dept. to investigate hate crimes against homosexuals and another rider that makes it harder to admit evidence in a military commissions trial. Weisman also notes an expansion to children’s health insurance, a law that protects equal pay for women, a bill that protects protects Wyoming land from oil drilling, and a law that empowers the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco (but, amazingly the bill doesn’t let the FDA regulate menthol cigarettes — the most addictive cigarette on the market!).

This is a nice summary of Obama and the Democratic Congress’s accomplishments so far. But these accomplishments seem, well, a little slight. A watered-down tobacco bill? A tweak of military commissions rules after the president first seemed intent on trying to eliminate military commissions? Maybe comprehensive health care reform really has consumed the attention of both the administration and Congress. Except for perhaps the stimulus bill, the president risks going into 2010 with no major legislative accomplishment that really changes government’s role in a particular industry or sector, be it health care, finance, real estate, energy, the environment, or education.

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