The Hill News

President Obama addressed supporters in a video message on Thursday, saying that their frustration with his progress in office is a reason to redouble efforts on behalf of his reelection.

Obama acknowledged the impatience sometimes of his liberal supporters with the administration's ability to follow through on some of Obama's 2008 campaign promises.

"I know that a lot of you who were involved in the campaign earlier, over the last two years, you've probably felt some frustration," Obama said in a web video posted Thursday to his campaign account. "There's been some times where you wanted Washington to change a lot more quickly than it has, and it keeps on slipping into those same old bad habits."

Liberals in particular had expressed some frustration with Obama's compromises with Republicans to extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts for two years, and on a 2011 budget that slashed tens of billions in spending from the budget. Obama also re! versed himself on his pledge to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; his administration relented to GOP opposition earlier this month, and agreed to hold military tribunals for suspected terrorists, instead of criminal trials on the continental U.S.

The president's faced down some of those disenchanted supporters as he begins his reelection campaign. Protesters interrupted one of his speeches last night at a fundraiser in New York City, complaining of his work to address HIV/AIDS.

Obama said his supporters' frustration should give them cause, though, to work even harder for him and Democrats in the 2012 elections.

"If you've been feeling impatient -- and I understand that -- if you're feeling frustrated sometimes, that shouldn't be a reason to pull back," he said. "That's a reason for us to get even more involved."