44.1

Barack Obama has done more in his first day in office than Bush did in two terms. This includes, but is not limited to, freezing senior staffers' pay, stifling Guantanamo trials, hosting hundreds of WH visitors, meeting with economic team, meeting with foreign policy team, calling several Middle Eastern leaders (something I'm pretty sure Bush never did), shaking the hand of every member of his new staff, congratulating Hillary Clinton on officially becoming Secretary of State, and praying.

Tomorrow he orders Guantanamo Bay closed within a year. That's great and all, but it may be he's rushing to get this in as a diversionary tactic to peacemongers who will be upset to find he's not gonna get the room to move on Iraq like they wanted/voted for him to do.

And this is strange to me. Obama has been a lone voice among Democrats to leave the remnants of the Bush administration where they lie, and not move forward with any sort of investigation of illegal activity, misuse of executive power, etc. I understand where he's coming from, but after his inaugural speech, which seemed to me to be a scathing lambast of the past eight years, it's disingenuous. He also signed this document today. From Politico:

the Executive Order on Presidential Records brings those principles to presidential records by giving the American people greater access to these historic documents. This order ends the practice of having others besides the President assert executive privilege for records after an administration ends. Now, only the President will have that power, limiting its potential for abuse. And the order also requires the Attorney General and the White House Counsel to review claims of executive privilege about covered records to make sure those claims are fully warranted by the Constitution.

I don't know what to make of that. It seems very convoluded for such a simple measure. Is he safeguarding Bush? I understand how that would make sense politically. But his new WH counsel is full of attorneys who have been chomping at the bit to get at 43's record.

Whatever the concerns are, to an extent, it doesn't matter. We have a people's President now and that's wonderful. I know I speak for a lot of people my age when I say that I don't know what that is like, or even what it's like to respect the leader of my country. But I can't wait to find out.

















Also, who isn't dying to know what Bush wrote on the note he left for Obama? On the envelope it read, "To #44 From #43". Anyone care to speculate?

mark.