LEADING FROM THE CENTER: SATISFYING NO ONE VERY MUCH
For those who paid too much attention to Obama's talk of change during the campaign, most of his cabinet level appointments have been disappointments. Now, as the focus shifts from personality to policy, his advisors and spin specialists speak of “bipartisanship, centrism, pragmatism and post-partisanship”. We don't expect to hear the phrase 'change we can believe in' in the inaugural address. Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com reports that: “Obama talked during the campaign about creating a new kind of post-partisan politics -- and dissolving the country's cultural and racial and ideological boundaries. Given Obama's limited record in Congressional politics, it was hard to know what he really meant, but it now seems that he was serious. Since Election Day, he has taken a series of steps to co-opt his opponents and fashion a new governing majority. It's an admirable strategy but also a high-risk one, since the "center," however attractive it may be in principle, is often a nebulous political never-never land.”
“Whatever else one might want to say about this 'centrist' approach, the absolute last thing one can say about it is that there's anything 'new' or 'remarkable' about it.  The notion that Democrats must spurn their left-wing base and move to the 'non-ideological' center is the most conventional of conventional Beltway wisdom.  That's how Democrats earn their Seriousness credentials, and it's been that way for decades.”
We merely have to revisit the Clinton era and his abandonment of welfare programs, his failure to pursue health care reform, and his willingness to promote globalism at the expense of American workers, to be reminded of what that retreat to the center involves. Many Democrats who voted to authorize invading Iraq later claimed they'd been mislead: yet they have dutifully approved supplemental appropriations for the war every year since, unwilling to risk being accused of not supporting the troops.
Greenwald concludes: “I've been saying since the election that it makes little sense to try to guess what Obama is going to do until he actually does it. That's especially true now, since we'll all have the actual evidence very shortly, and trying to speculate by divining the predictive meaning of his appointments or prior statements seems fruitless. Moreover, anonymous reports about what Obama is 'likely' to do are particularly unreliable.  I still believe that, but Obama's interview January 11th with George Stephanopoulos on ABC is the most compelling -- and most alarming -- evidence yet that all of the 'centrist' and 'post-partisan' chatter from Obama's supporters will mean what it typically means:  devotion, first and foremost, to perpetuating rather than challenging how the Washington establishment functions.”

IF WE DON'T PROCESCUTE THOSE WHO COMMITTED HIGH CRIMES, HAVE WE NOT APPROVED THEIR ACTIONS?
Bob Fertik, writer and co-founder of Democrats.com asked Obama via the website Change.gov : "Will you appoint a special prosecutor -- ideally Patrick Fitzgerald -- to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?" Fertik's question got so much attention and approval from other users on the site that it made its way to the top of the Change.gov list and onto the Sunday talk shows, finally garnering this response from Obama when George Stephanopoulos asked the question directly:
"We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions and so forth. And obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards."
Fertik said that while "there has not been a lot of passion for accountability on some of the bigger blogs", he sees pressure building at the grass roots. Part of the recent public outrage surrounding this issue has been that White House officials have been talking openly about their having violated the law. "It's been an open secret: George Bush admits that he authorized torture: Dick Cheney admits that he authorized torture," Fertik said.
Fertik was frustrated by the president-elect's response on ABC's This Week. "It was a dodge. It was evasive". He feels it is unlikely that a Special Prosecutor will be named. Obama said in his interview with Stephanopoulos that he feared an investigation may make some in the CIA "feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering." Fertik has an idea of a good way to ensure that doesn't happen: “Start at the top. The people who are most deserving of prosecution -- Bush and Cheney -- will not be working in the CIA after Jan. 20th". Obama‘s final word via Stephanopoulos was this: "When it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past."

SUCCESSFULLY GUIDING THE SHIP OF STATE DURING ITS SUNSET CRUISE
Alexander Cockburn writes in Counterpunch 1/17/09 that: “I've always been a fan of George Bush, on the simple grounds that the American empire needs taking down several notches and George Jr has been the right man for the job. On Bush’s Jr’s fitful watch Latin America edged nervously out of Uncle Sam’s shadow. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia boldly assert their independence and thumb their noses at Uncle Sam. Twenty years earlier the 'strong leadership' craved by Americans of all political stripes would have seen Chavez and Morales briskly toppled by the CIA and their local right-wing allies.”
“Barely a month went by in Bush Jr’s second term but that some liberal or left pundit would predict a US attack on Iran. It turns out that the Israeli high command made numerous requests for clearance for its planes to overfly Iraq on their way to Iran, but were adamantly nixed by George Jr. “
“Jr’s greatest single triumph in reducing America’s standing was his insistence that the assembly elections in Iraq go forward as planned, in December of 2005. Many seasoned counselors advised Bush to suspend the elections he’d pledged because they would lead to a majority Shi'ite government. Nevertheless, the 43rd president obstinately rejected these counsels, and the elections resulted in a mortal blow to U.S. objectives in Iraq and in the entire region.”
“Somewhere in late 2003, blaming everything on Bush became a national pastime and alibi. He took the hit for fifty years of venal failure by the city fathers of New Orleans and the legislators of Louisiana to protect their city. He’s even had to shoulder the blame for the Wall Street meltdown and the sub-prime crisis, for which Congressional legislators and overseers can far more justly be held responsible.”
“Blessed blunder dogged his every step: He made so half hearted an effort to 'reform' Social Security – the last defense of older Americans – that Wall Street, the instigator of the 'reform', remembered with profound nostalgia that Bill Clinton was well on his way to destroying Social Security until the Lewinsky scandal forced him to abort the mission. Bush passed his final White House years in morose seclusion, despised by all, obeyed by none – a welcome rebuke to the concept of 'unitary power' and an omnipotent executive.
“Now Obama proclaims his mission of renewing America, always a sinister prospect. We’re heading back into the high country of moral uplift, and dispiriting talk of America’s 'mission'.

THE SAME OLD TEAM OF SEMITES
Roger Cohen of the NY Times questions the team selected so far by Hillary Clinton to advise her on Middle East policy. Most of them have a long history of association with the major Israeli lobby organization in Washington, AIPAC and its sister think-tank The Washington Institute on Near East Policy, and have spent considerable time as US government officials advising the Clinton administration on how best to follow Israel's lead so as to prevent Palestinian rights ever being realized.
“They include Dennis Ross (the veteran Clinton administration Mideast peace envoy who may now extend his brief to Iran); James Steinberg (as deputy secretary of state); Dan Kurtzer (the former U.S. ambassador to Israel); and Martin Indyk (another former ambassador to Israel).” Cohen goes on: “Now, I have nothing against smart, driven, liberal, Jewish (or half-Jewish) males; I’ve looked in the mirror. I know or have talked to all these guys. They’re knowledgeable, broad-minded and determined. Still, on the diversity front they fall short and on the change-you-can-believe-in front, they also leave something to be desired. Newsweek recently praised Ross’s previous experience “as the indefatigable point man during the failed Oslo process, as well as the main negotiator with Syria, makes him uniquely suited for a major renewal of U.S. policy on nearly every front.” Really?” Cohen asks: “I wonder about the capacity for 'major renewal' of someone who has failed for so long”.
“Do people in the region take note when Arab-Americans are not represented? Sure they do,” said Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington. The people of Palestine are Semites, just as are the Israelis, yet no prominent Arab-American scholar has been invited to join the Obama team. For Obama and Clinton to place the same old pro-Israeli lobby in charge of our policy will merely generate more rage amongst the Palestinians and less trust of America's good intentions.