Here's something President Obama's biggest fans may need to hear: He's just not that into you.
Recall that during the primaries, Obama was probably second only to Dennis Kucinich as an anti-Iraq war and anti-Bush candidate. But he has kept President Bush's Defense secretary and appointed a secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who voted for the war. His vice president, Joe Biden, also voted for the war. Obama himself seems to be in less of a hurry to leave Iraq than we might have expected from listening to him over the last couple of years.
The new president has ordered that his predecessor's rendition policies remain largely intact, even to the point of using the "state secrets" privilege to block a rendition lawsuit. Obama may have stated categorically that America "will not torture," but outsourcing it is still OK.
The White House also defends the Bush policy of imprisoning, without trial, enemy combatants captured abroad. Obama's lawyers argued in a court case brought by Afghan prisoners at the U.S. Air Force base at Bagram, Afghanistan, that the "government adheres to its previously articulated position" -- the one articulated by those evil Bush lawyers.
Meanwhile, a new Pentagon study commissioned by Obama has found that the prison at Guantanamo Bay meets the standards of the Geneva Convention. One can only guess how the White House will make use of that finding. At the least, it should provide cover while the administration looks for alternatives to Gitmo that might not be all that alternative.
On the domestic front, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has decided that Bush's signature No Child Left Behind Act should be retained and moderately reformed. His boldest suggestion so far? "Let's rebrand it. Give it a new name." Now that's change even cynics can believe in.
In a rare instance of consistency between his campaign and his presidency, Obama is keeping Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, though he's renamed that one.
There are many lessons one could draw from Obama's actions. You might conclude that the famous pragmatist recognizes that this is a center-right country after all. Or that he is a hypocrite, a statesman, or both, now that the buck stops with him.
You could say that this all shows that Bush's war-on-terrorism policies weren't nearly as outrageous as his opponents, Obama included, said they were. Some conservatives might argue that it demonstrates how centrist, even liberal, Bush's domestic policies were. Obama supporters might claim it proves that conservative fears that Obama was a crazy left-winger were always unfounded.
