Change We Can Believe In?

I want to start this entry by saying with the utmost sincerity that I want President-elect Obama to be a successful president. While I disagree with a number of his policy positions, most fervently his stance regarding the second amendment (the one area where I hope he fails) I wish him success overall. The American people need him to be successful. They deserve him to be successful. The last 16 years of bi-partisan bickering, scandal, and grid-lock have done nothing to fix the very big problems facing this country. While former President Clinton and soon-to-be former President Bush were being vilified and stonewalled at every turn by the opposition party's Congressional leadership, the country’s problems continued to worsen. Certainly 9/11 and two wars abroad, no matter what your opinion is of them, have also impeded progress at home. So, with that background in mind I make the honest statement that even though I am a Conservative, I want President Obama to be successful.

Now that I have posted my disclaimer up front, I want to address my growing concern with what I see unfolding daily as we lead up to the inauguration and transition. President Obama campaigned on a platform of CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. However, once the election was over and he was certain of winning the White House, he seemed to dump the mantra of change as quickly as he dumped Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers on the campaign trail.

I bring up those names for two reasons. The first is that we all saw in the campaign how President Obama was willing to turn his back on people he had known, called friends, and associated with to achieve what was most important to him; becoming the next President of the United States. I argue he is doing the same thing right now. Only this time it is not individuals he is walking away from, rather, it is the message itself. I say it is the message itself because you only have to look at the team of people he is surrounding himself with to see that this is not change at all.

It started with his Vice Presidential pick, Joe Biden, a life-long politician and Washington insider, and has progressed to his subsequent choices installing Former Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle for Health and Human Services Secretary, Senator Hillary Clinton as a potential appointee for the prestigious position of Secretary of State, and Greg Craig, special counsel to former President Clinton as White House Counsel, to name a few. Several other former Clinton administration aides are being added to President Obama's team, Daniel Tarullo, Susan Rice, and James Steinberg will advise the President-elect on policy matters. Finally, Eric Holder will serve as attorney general. While Mr. Holder is a respected attorney in his own right, he is also the Deputy Attorney General who shepherded the pardon of fugitive businessman Marc Rich and 16 Puerto Rican nationalists from the terror group FALN to approval at the end of the Clinton administration. This is not change at all, and it certainly is not CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. These are the same people who were part of the problems for the last 16 years. These are the same people who have contributed to the grid lock, bickering, and scandal mentioned above. The same people who have helped Congress achieve a dismal 19% approval rating (Gallop polls). How can anyone as educated and intelligent as President Obama believe that this is any sort of CHANGE at all? Perhaps this is change for President Obama, but to quote him, perhaps, "this just isn't the change we, the American people know".

Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers, although now have largely been discredited by the Obama campaign, serve as a reminder and perhaps a glistening tip of an ice-burg yet to come. Just as the Conservative media outlets went bonkers over Ayers and Wright during the campaign, so too, have they now already started (and perhaps your humble writer is part of the problem) harping on President Obama's lack of change, lack of true leadership, and lack of judgment in selecting trusted advisors and members of his cabinet. I make that last statement with all due respect to those named above. While we believe vastly different things, I do respect them for being a part of the process and for serving in a place where often times it seems the downside of the job is much greater than the upside. However, I fear, the Sean Hannitys and the Michael Savages of the world are going to go after President Obama for not surrounding himself with people who were truly different and could actually bring about CHANGE. In my opinion, this lack of judgment on the part of the incoming president will be his first stumbling block coming out of the gate. These people have not worked well with the Republicans for decades, how does President Obama think this is going to CHANGE? What he has done is given the Republicans the first box of ammunition and the target to aim at in an ongoing war of grid-lock, partisan bickering, and scandal.

My hope is that we conservatives can be sensible enough and courageous enough to choose not to use this ammunition against him. Perhaps we can demonstrate the meaning of true leadership and bring about REAL CHANGE not by going after these appointments and refusing to work with these people, but by finding a middle ground, just maybe, something meaningful can be achieved. That would most definitely be CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. The American people need that now. The American people deserve that. The American people are demanding that.

With that said I'll sign off by saying, good luck President Obama, while you seem to have abandoned CHANGE, I hope for all of us that CHANGE has not abandoned you.