Our political Quote of the Day comes from a must-read-in-full post by Susan J. Demas, a political analyst for Michigan Information & Research Service, writing on mlive.com, the Lansing, Michigan, Capital Chronicles website. She argues that the center is holding under Barack Obama, despite fierce attacks from the left and the right and despite what you may read in blogosphere.

Here’s how she begins:

Some days, I think I must be the only person in America who does not blame all the world’s ails (and my own personal failings) on the president.

To read the news, you would think that all Republicans think Barack Obama is a naïve, freedom-hating fascist commie hell-bent on taking our guns and making us all have abortions (yes, even the guys). And every liberal thinks the prez is a warmongering neocon in sheep’s clothing (or worse, a centrist) willing to sell his grandmother to the GOP to achieve bipartisan consensus to make Wall Street fat cats even flusher.

The truth is, about half of the country approves of Obama. Not stellar numbers, but for the worst downturn since the Great Depression marked by one and 10 people out of work, it’s probably as good as can be expected. And in spite of the steady stream of venom against the president on liberal sites like Daily Kos, he actually hasn’t lost much support from Democrats in the polls.

But just try to read coverage in an increasingly shallow mainstream media and the fanatically partisan blogosphere about folks who actually think our commander-in-chief is capable.

Good luck. It’s much better copy to go with the gripers.

She takes a look a news coverage, what she calls the misunderstanding of how government works displayed by some writers, and then praises Obama for staying on a course that — within the current American political context — is moderate and centrist. Then she writes at the end:

Obama has governed as a centrist president and no one should pretend otherwise. His health care reform is not radical, nor is his energy plan, nor is his foreign policy, which looks almost identical in tone and substance to that of Bush the Elder. He has increased spending, though not nearly as much as Bush the Younger, and has made key cuts, like killing off the F-22 (something no one thought could be done).

There is great uneasiness with change in this country, as there always is, and it’s punctuated by a horror-show economy. Civil rights, child labor laws, Social Security – none of this came easy. But they’re now the fabric of our society.

That’s what breeds fear on the right and impatience on the left. But for those of us in the center, this is what inspires hope.

Now read it in full from start to finish.