Marco.org

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you go to West Point tomorrow night and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians are alike. I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn’t so.

— An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore

So far, I haven’t seen anything from the Obama administration that comes anywhere close to my most modest, conservative expectations for policy change.

Sure, Obama has only been in office for about a year and he still has a lot of Bush’s mess to clean up. But I don’t even see that happening particularly effectively.

Instead, I see a lot of unnecessary “compromise” with Republicans and right-wing nutjobs. (“Compromise” is not an effective word to describe a situation in which every concession comes from the more-powerful side and the less-powerful side is irrational and crazy.) I see a lot of policy decisions not being made and a lot of action not being taken. I see the government playing softball with big business, even when it goes against stated policy goals. I see nearly every harmful Bush-administration policy untouched or strengthened. And I see an increasing disconnect between the priorities of the administration and the opinions of actual voters.

What part of this is the “change” Obama spoke of? What part should give us the “hope” that we were promised?