I think Obama made some stupid mistakes in his first couple of weeks -- putting numbers to the employment outcomes of the spending bill was the biggest, followed by the justice department acquiescence in one of the worst rights abuses of the Bush administration -- but I am coming around to the opinion that he is playing a long game. When you look at the vast number of messes he has to deal with, thanks to what he inherited, he is going to have to transform the whole American project -- get it back to what it really does better than anyplace else in the world: harnessing the creative powers of its people to immense tasks. The immensest is dealing with energy and climate change -- this is going to require unbelievable transformations in contemporary social forms -- followed by dramatic government interventions into health care and education and a whole lot of stuff screwed around with by half-assed alternatives. And then there are two useless wars.

How do you deal with these? You have to first marginalize the idiots who got you to this point, and it appears he is working on that. Or they are doing it to themselves.....

yours,

Peter T.