If you believe [Howard] Dean's implication that Obama is going to use that political capital to pass both significant climate change reform and significant health care reform within the first two years of his presidency, you probably ought to give him the benefit of the doubt. If, on the other hand, you see Obama as someone more concerned with the accumulation of power toward ambiguous, uncertain, or incorrect ends, this is liable to be the first of a long line of displeasing decisions, and you had better get used to pushing back against the White House.
Clicking around, the netroots are clearly 75 percent with the latter and 25 percent (including me, for what it's worth) with the former. Unfortunately. But my hunch is that once the Obama narrative reveals more of itself, the 75 percent will rapidly diminish.
Here's an analogy. You're driving to the hospital with a severely injured friend in the back seat. The friend, it turns out, was beaten up by a group of drunken rednecks at a bar. Do you drive around looking for the rednecks to run them over? Or do you use your gasoline and energy to get your friend to a hospital?