There is a distorted concept of conservatism and liberalism in America. These labels are thrown around loosely by political factions and the sheer mention of the word is supposed to cause people to think of the worst extremes. We have certainly seen one of the extremes at work over the past eight years. While I have high expectations of Obama, he does have to work within the system or work toward changing the system, and it appears that he is putting together people with experience but also diverse realms of thought. One primary thing helped to create the present mess, and that was decisions were made by a relatively small number of people who basically agreed with each other and whose aim was to pander to special interests.