100 Days: Mixed Bag; Actions Don't Match Rhetoric and Political Expediency Cancels or Dilutes Many Promises of Change
I consider the 100 days a mixed bag: good, so-so, and not so good/terrible. However, Obama inherited a legacy of catastrophic damage to this country caused by the criminal Bush regime (about which he doesn't remind the American people as often as he should), and a McCain-Palin regime would have been the final disaster for the US.
There are two thoughtful commentaries that contain some points which reflect my thoughts on Obama's 100 days.
Vince Warren with the Progressive Media Project writes at McClatchydc:
"Many of Obama's words have been inspiring. His rhetoric represents a relief to those who watched with horror as the Bush administration systematically dismantled the U.S. Constitution and ignored international human rights standards.
"Yet in many areas of critical importance – like human rights, torture, rendition, secrecy and surveillance – his words have been loftier than his actions.
"On Obama's very first day in office, his administration ordered a 120-day suspension of the military commissions for Guantanamo detainees. The commissions were widely assailed for allowing evidence obtained through coercion and torture, secret evidence and hearsay evidence, all in violation of the U.S. Constitution. But Obama did not abolish the military commissions; he only hit the "pause" button.
"Secrecy was the hallmark of the Bush administration. It classified more documents than any administration in history, restricted Freedom of Information Act requests and tried to protect government officials and military contractors from being held liable for illegal actions, such as torture and wrongful death. It invoked the state secrets privilege to avoid scrutiny in court and responsibility for government action more times than any other administration.
"Obama has come down on both sides of this issue, ordering far more transparency through cooperation with Freedom of Information Act requests, while at the same time invoking state secrets in a case charging an aviation corporation with complicity in rendering a detainee to torture."
And Johann Hari at The Independent writes: "Nobody feels like hanging out tinsel to mark Barack Obama's first one hundred days - least of all the President himself. After the cheering crowds in Grant Park and the choked-up crowds on Inauguration Day went home, he has been left with a depression, a slew of wars, and an unravelling climate. Mario Cuomo, the former mayor of New York, said politicians "campaign in poetry, but govern in prose" - and Obama has had to hit the prose hard. So now George W. Bush has been despatched to torture only the English language, has "change come to America", as Obama promised?
"Obama's reaction to the engulfing depression has commanded most attention - except for his purchase of a puppy. This is the most mixed of all the President's policies. His financial appointments have been a disgrace. He has put in charge the very people who brought us to this calamity in the first place: Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, and Larry Summers, the director of the White House National Economic Council, were the architects of deregulation in the Clinton administration. They peeled back the last inches of FDR-era protection that could have prevented this crash - and then danced off to Wall Street to make millions from it. Last year alone, Summers raked in $8m from Wall Street firms he is now bailing out.
"Should we have "faith" he will do the right thing? Absolutely not - and the very idea is dangerous. You should pick the best leader available, and then pressure him or her like hell. Obama is dramatically better than Bush - but in the end, he will only be as good as the pressure put on him by ordinary people. FDR came to power as a budget-balancing centrist, until the American people forced him to the left, and to greatness. One hundred days in, are they ready to shove Obama to act on his own best instincts? He ain't Franklin Delano Obama yet."
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