backbone repair daunts messiah

[eirias]

Or so you'd imagine. But so far he's doing fine.

Me, on the other hand? I'm a puddle of blissed-out confusion. Since when have leaders been concerned about abuses of power once the power is theirs alone? Since when has a president spent his first week in office keeping campaign promises?

I voted for this man with muted hopes and in three days he's done more to fulfill them than I thought he would do in a year. I read about the Guantánamo closing at work and I actually cried.

Comments

[la-luna-llena.livejournal.com]

I feel like I've just come out of an emotionally abusive relationship or something. The good things in question should be the _standard_, not unusually great things. Yet I'm so happy.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Yeah... the bar of my expectations hit sea level a few years ago and kept on sinking. ;P

[ragnvaeig.livejournal.com]

My boss' boss went to the archival standards meeting a week ago Wednesday. It made me squee.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

That's... really awesome. Who do you work for that gets to do such awesome things?

[ragnvaeig.livejournal.com]

The archives for the commonwealth. :)

[roamin-umpire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm completely with you on that one. The comparison between how I felt about the country in 2001 and now is astounding. What makes it even more striking is that in 2001, I didn't have a clear picture of what we were getting into yet, because Bush wasn't very clear about what his plans were. Now, we've known what the plans are for months, and they're occurring right quick. It's amazing.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I feel guilty thinking things like that. I think, isn't it a really big problem if you're only proud of your country when your party is in control?

But then I remind myself -- this is not about party; I would not feel this way if Kerry or Clinton had won, because I truly cannot conceive that they would have done these things. This is about the man.

And it's not about pride, either, honestly. It's about relief from shame. Only partial relief -- the dead are still dead, the disappeared and the tortured will never be the same. There are crimes we can't undo. But we can at least stop committing them.

[mokatz.livejournal.com]

I wholeheartedly concur w/ you about the Gitmo, torture and records, additionally the flipping of the stem cell ban and federal funding for family planning groups. However, I'm quite disappointed about his failure to move as quickly or decisively with respect to warrantless wiretapping and the rest of the domestic spying morass. :-/

[cynic51.livejournal.com]

Well, he has only had the job for less than a week. If he hasn't done something in TWO weeks, then you can be disappointed.

[cos]

Obama's nominee for national intelligence director already told Congress, in his confirmation hearings, that he will stop warrantless wiretapping.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I agree with both NOK and Cos. Also:

1. When a billion things are broken, you have to start somewhere. I think the choices he's made are good places to start, for symbolic impact -- it is important to me that the first people whose rights he's addressing are not mostly Americans -- but also for moral impact, because as much as I want to be free from espionage, I think it's more important that we be free from torture.

2. One of the most important aspects of addressing the domestic civil liberties infractions is going to be finding out just what the hell was done. The executive order pertaining to archives and executive privilege is, I think, very important groundwork in that struggle. Obama has made it clear that putting the previous administration against the wall is not something he wants to spend his time and energy on... but I don't think that means his attorney general won't, if it becomes clear that laws have been broken.

3. More importantly -- he didn't actually have to do any of this, certainly not in the first week. He already got elected; he is not pandering to anybody. That three of his first actions pertain to restoring civil liberties speaks volumes about what his priorities are. I've never encountered anyone with real power who seemed to care about its limits.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

3. Exactly. I think Obama and Biden both deserve vast amounts of credit for willingly decreasing the amount of power they have.

[razberriswirl.livejournal.com]

Did you listen to his weekly address on YouTube yesterday? I totally cried. I didn't think I could respect a politician that much.

[eldan.livejournal.com]

It's funny - my first reaction to your post was "what's confusing or difficult about this", but actually I have also been struggling with this. I haven't yet figured out how to reconcile just how much I like, respect, admire this guy and how completely I buy into pretty much everything he stands for with not turning into the sort of hero-worshipper who is insufficiently watchful over those in power. At times it scares me a little, and at other times I sit back and just think about how lucky we are.