This second-term Obama gives me some hope. His inauguration speech focused on the principles he'll be fighting for, the progressive principles we elected him for, not on the importance of post-partisanship and agreeing on something, anything. He brought up climate change again for basically the first time in 4 years, and it appears he intends to act on that front with or without Republican votes. He even spoke against the idea of perpetual war, which implies some critique of the endless "war on terrorism" and all its attendant abuses. He stood firm on principle on the debt limit and turned up the political heat on the Republicans and they folded quickly -- whereas in the first term he would have offered a terrible compromise and his apologists would have said "he doesn't have the votes to lift the debt limit, he made the best deal he can". He's taken a strong stand on gun control and is asking the public to rise up and back him, instead of starting with the position he thinks he has the votes for. He didn't fold when Republicans attacked Hagel, maybe the first time he hasn't retreated under attack. And Hagel and Kerry as his foreign policy/national security team, while not ideal in many ways, at least have both learned the lessons of Vietnam. He and his administration have even started up a grass-roots organization independent of the Democratic party, that seems very much based on the 2008 campaign organization and, like that organization, promises to empower bottom-up organizing. Deciding to close that organization down after getting elected (or more precisely, turn it into a top-down Democratic party mailing list) was a terrible mistake; it may be too late now to rekindle that energy, but worth a try.
Still many many problems, in targeted assassination and unlimited detention with no legal rights and warrantless wiretapping and "total information awareness" -- scooping up and storing all electronic transmissions; in DOJ prosecutions of too many of the wrong little people -- whistleblowers (including about torture), hackers, medical marijuana growers -- and none of the big people -- the big financial criminals, the ones who created the torture regime; in talking too much about deficits and too little about jobs (though not in his inaugural speech); in giving away too much in the fiscal cliff negotations, like keeping the tax rate on dividends at 20% so Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney will keep paying lower taxes than their secretaries, and I expect him shamefully to reduce social security benefitsin the next negotiation. But, hopeful notes too. It's been a long time coming, but it seems he and his administration have learned something.
