I look at Obama on the one hand letting Bush and Cheney get away with kidnapping torture and murder, and on the other trying to deal with Syria. In Syria we have Asad using chemical weapons on his own people and the rebels identifying funding coming from al Qaeda as preferable to a vacuum of international support. Mans inhumanity to man knows no limits as is proven by Governor Snyder in Detroit.
I look at Obama continuing if not worsening the situation with FISA, the NSA, the Patriot Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, the Military Commissions Act, Indefinite Detention and the assassination of American citizens, a "Get it All" surveillance police, drones and covert actions around the world and at the same time trying to arrive at a Policy in which Obama Care becomes like Medicare and Social Security, an expectation rather than just a desire.
We don't have long before climate change mediation is no longer an option. A world government could prosecute Bush and Cheney for torture, and maybe even pass climate change mediation but the risks vs rewards to get there are pretty scary.
The US would have to give up its sovereignty just like everybody else to see justice. Theocratic populations might decide Democracy doesn't work and opt for World Theocracies. That might mean that someday white Christians and Jews would be a minority not just in the US but the world. Religious Genocide might attempt to make the entire planet share homogeneous attitudes and values as to what is right and proper.
We might perceive decentralized power works better and helps keep power in the hands of the people, or we might argue that without a redistribution of wealth our international corpocracy may continue unchecked its centralized control of much of the world's affairs
Real change is hard to do in a nation split about 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, but in nations with many factions in control of the government coalitions tend to bring together extremist ideas.
We may still want Bush and Cheney et al, investigated, prosecuted, incarcerated but we may also have wanted other priorities accomplished first. Most of us have focused on getting the economy corrected, deregulation of banks and wall street ended, an end to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, controls on energy companies, an end to subsidies for big business, an end to the war on women, sensible immigration policies, marriage equality, gun control, all Republican obstruction and voter suppression ended and the implementation of Obama Care.
A detailed list of everything we want done right now urgently might include some of the things Al Jaseera is starting to demand we pay some attention to in the third world.
Each and every issue has coalitions of strange bedfellows that can call on special interests to cross party lines, but if political power is the ability to persuade, then expediting persuasive arguments with any pretense of not being heavy handed enough to blow the deal requires at a minimum waiting for investigations to run their course.
It might be argued that Obama is expediting things with great delicacy and eleven dimensional chess playing skills against incredible obstruction and that he has chosen 2014 as a cusp coming to fruition in 2016.
Implementing Obamacare for an additional 50 million people in 2014 will make a difference in 2016. For the worlds largest arms dealer Getting out of Afghanistan in 2014 without getting back into Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen or Pakistan before 2016, in the face of threats by Russia, China and Iran or allowing more genocidal atrocities to continue isn't presently a high priority for anyone but Obama. Indeed Republicans will scream bloody murder demanding the forever war continue, but if Obama pulls that off Hillary will be the next president.
We may fully expect Hillary to be succeeded by Elizabeth Warren and that if not by 2016, by 2024 we will have a more progressive Scotus, progressive Democrats in control in congress with good diversity and minority representation, climate change mediation legislation, and a chance for Detroit to survive another half century.
To get to where Obama could realistically envision that he had to win a right wing evangelical Christian Republican coalition in the military over to major cuts in military spending and that a sequester in both military and civilian spending could break the back of military entitlements always escalating into a forever war required some sort of bold thinking. Its possible to observe the sequester cuts the MIC just as deeply as it does social programs. All of this draw down is delicate and not supported by anyone anywhere because Military spending has held off world recession since the Great Depression, but what happens to social programs after Obama care is implemented and everyone discovers they like it?
Contrast Obama care and stimulus carefully balanced by cost effective cuts in subsidies to big businesses like energy, healthcare, agrabusiness and the MIC with Michigan's managers getting rid of Democratic institutions. Snyder is not Obama. Snyder will fail to entirely destroy either Detroit or Michigan, but in trying to do an adverse takeover and sell off all their assets he will help bring Republican and Tea Party alike to their extinction event.