Oh sure, but what's he done in the last 10 minutes?

Oh, there you are, Perry. -Phineas -SLB-

As opposed to Bush's first executive orders.

Executive Order 13198
Jan. 29, 2001
Agency Responsibilities With Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

Executive Order 13199
Jan. 29, 2001
Establishment of White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

My, how times have changed.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

Don't worry.  He'll eventually do something we can all complain about.  

Seriously, I've been very pleased with the first few days.  He has exceeded my expectations.  

He's doing what he said he'd do. That alone might be a historic first. These are fundamental changes from the conventional wisdom of only months ago, when the echo chamber agreed that such actions would amount to polical suicide and national peril. Yet Obama just made them happen without any, well, drama.

The funny thing is that now I'm hearing criticism that Obama just did the easy and obvious stuff, plucked the low-hanging fruit, and now is getting credit for nothing. And yet none of these things were seriously addressed in two years of a Dem-controlled Congress.

Looks to me like Obama is going to be a remarkable mix of pragmatic and principled president. So far he's done more good for America in three days than Bush and Congress did in 8 long years. The hard economic stuff is coming soon, and will offer no obvious solutions. Some of us will be pissed at some of what Obama decides. But judging from these first days, Obama will deal with the no-win decisions as intelligently and beneficially as anybody could. I feel it's possible to trust him to do the best that can be done -- which I haven't felt in so long that it scares me.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

Guantanamo and the black sites, fabulous, though one year is much too long. Now let's see what he does about the people who are still there, including the poor guy who was taken there seven years ago at age 14 because he supposedly was a member of Al Qa`eda........when he was eleven years old. One third of his short life spent in that hell hole. But what about Bagram, and other American-run horror houses in Afghanistan and Iraq? If he doesn't also close those places, then closing Guantanamo starts to look like a P.R. stunt.

Suspending the Military Commission kangaroo court - not bad, but not quite good enough. He ought to close it down altogether (yeah, I get that suspending it might be the first step toward that, and am willing to wait and see what he does at the end of the 120 days, but I am not going to get out the pom poms and brass band just yet).

Presidential Records Act, FOIA, lobbying ban - excellent.

Making the Army Field Manual the standard - yes, but there was some scary equivocation that went along with it. Are Rachel Maddow and I the only ones who picked up on it? I'm not giving him an A for that when he provided enough "wiggle room" to still fit a few torture techniques in there.

Iraq - not so hot. Now he has even dropped the word "withdrawal", and is asking his military commanders to talk amongst themselves about the possibility of a "drawdown", as he keeps moonwalking faster and faster.

On Palestine - simply disgusting. He spoke as if they were two equal parties battling it out, as if the suffering and death on the part of Israelis (14 dead, ten of them combatants, four or five by "friendly fire") were equal to that of Palestinians (around 1400 dead so far, the vast majority civilians, more than 1/3 of them children, more Palestinian children than Hamas fighters killed). He sort of kind of acknowledged that the Palestinians have been having a bit of a hard time of it, but made not a hint of the horrific toll of killing an maiming, or the utter destruction of vital infrastructure (using mostly American-made weapons bought with American money), and he seemed to indicate that this was just one of those things that happens to people - not a word about Israel's responsibility for it. He put all the onus on Hamas, and required nothing of Israel except to withdraw from Gaza, which they had already done by then. And he repeated the obvious lie that it was all about Hamas firing thousands of rockets, when it clearly was not. But what can we expect given the people he has surrounded himself with?

So far there is some great, some good, some better than nothing, and some not at all acceptable. Not wonderful, but considering past history, and the available alternative, not terrible.