Restitutor Orbis

It is Day 3 of the presidency of Barack Obama. I get an almost giddy feeling even typing that, as though it's a dream I never quite thought would come true. But it has, and it is difficult not to bask in the reality of it.

The New York Times provides a nice analysis this morning of Obama's first day as President, On Day One, Obama Sets a New Tone discussing and analyzing the president's initial moves and their importance in setting the tone of his administration. Another offering from the New York Times that is worth a read is Nicholas D. Kristof's The Remaking of America. Kristof makes the following memorable remark:

A BBC poll in 17 nations found that on average 67 percent believed that President Obama would improve America’s relations with the rest of the world; just 5 percent thought the opposite (or maybe feared that if they seemed critical of George W. Bush, they would be waterboarded).

Perhaps the biggest news of the day is the signing by Obama of an executive order to close Gitmo - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - within a year. CNN reports that

During a signing ceremony at the White House, Obama reaffirmed his inaugural pledge that the United States does not have "to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals."

Two other executive orders followed the first:

A second executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations. That essentially ends the Bush administration's CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.

This is a positive step, and one that I cannot praise too highly. And finally,

A third executive order establishes an interagency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.

Obama says this task force will "provide me with information in terms of how we are able to deal (with) the disposition of some of the detainees that may be currently in Guantanamo that we cannot transfer to other countries, who could pose a serious danger to the United States."

Clearly, it will take more to close Gitmo than simply assertion a will to do so. The illegalities of the Bush administration has made the fate of some of the prisoners there highly problematic. They have already been denied due process. They may be guilty, but how can we try them now? I saw it suggested yesterday on MSNBC that some of them may end up being sent home to be tried by their own governments. It may well be that there are two choices, neither of them being "good" and "better."

Two additional executive orders followed:

A second executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations. That essentially ends the Bush administration's CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.

This is another positive step. And finally,

A third executive order establishes an interagency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.

Obama says that this task force will "provide me with information in terms of how we are able to deal (with) the disposition of some of the detainees that may be currently in Guantanamo that we cannot transfer to other countries, who could pose a serious danger to the United States."

Of course, the crazies are still out there. A sampling of today's rants:

* Obama will impose socialism on the United States
* Obama plans to kill millions of babies
* Obama plans to destroy "traditional" marriage

There is more, but those are the "high" points. The Right Wingnuts are doing everything they can to get themselves worked up and if it means inventing "facts" out of whole cloth, they've got the experience and lack of standards to do just that.

Finally, it has been reported in the New York Times that George J. Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader and the chairman of a Middle East peace commission in 2001, has been selected as special envoy to the MidEast. The paper has this to say:

The appointment of Mr. Mitchell, a seasoned and well-regarded negotiator, would signal that President-elect Barack Obama was attaching a high priority to the Middle East and the current Gaza crisis from his first days in office. Obama transition officials declined to comment on Mr. Mitchell, but David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, told CNN on Sunday that Mr. Obama would move quickly to address the instability in the Middle East and hoped that the new cease-fires in Gaza would last.

Obviously, this is good news. Now that Hilary has been made officially part of the team, the gears of diplomacy can begin to grind. I'm looking for change, but I'm uncertain how much change we'll get given the strength of the Israel lobby in this country. I'd like to see them judged as every other nation is judged but we've held to a special relationship with them since 1948 and there is a lot of inertia behind our existing policies.

Anything Obama does to re-examine that relationship will cost him political capital. Given the news coming out of Washington, both from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, you can be sure Obama will be carefully weighing where to spend that capital. Critical as the situation in the MidEast is, my own hope is that he will look at our domestic problems first.