Crushing Your Enemies, Seeing Them Driven Before You, and Hearing the Lamentations of the Executives

So, during my thrice daily online news roundup (Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, International Herald Tribune, BBC, heck sometimes Al Jazera) I came upon an article that piqued my interest.

Much of the these initial stages of the Obama Administration have been spent just cleaning up the mess of the last eight years. That is, getting the government back to work I suppose, not to mention the vast majority of time spent hiring and firing and deliberating on who works for the government, who works for the people, and who had an agenda contrary to democracy. Gotta love those slow creaky gears of the republic eh? You can practically hear Rahm Emanuel spreading grease.

But, many think (myself included at times), that Barack Obama will end up being less of a progressive, than the moderate-if not somewhat comprising, figure...closer to Clinton the triangulator than say FDR or even Eisenhower (come on, he really defended the New Deal from his own Party).

For instance, Obama reduced the real life issue of revisiting the country's Marajuana Laws to a joke, a jest, a media friendly chuckle. In this case the question was worded poorly. It asked, in part, that wouldn't the legalization of marajuana be a an economic boon to the lagging U.S. economy.

First, the step needed to correct the long lost War on Drugs is decriminalization. This question also overlooks the obvious. How much money has been and continues to be wasted on the loosing war? How much is spent criminalizing whole swathes of the American public and incarcerating them? How much money can be spent to protect people from a plant? Whatever, I am getting too far from the article.

So, my concern is that Barack Obama is too much a moderate, unwilling or unable to correct the multitudes of errors made this past century. Daunting task? You betcha. But then i read this article, linked via the Huffington Post.

Ok, so what if Obama doesn't posture like the macho cowboy or bang his fist on the bully pulpit. The real deal of politics is what goes on behind the scenes. If this is
any indication, we have a lot to look forward to.