Obama, left, meets with Bush for the first time as president-elect. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Change under Obama
Now that Barack Obama is headed for the White House, said The Denver Post in an editorial, he will make change happen "with the stroke of pen." Obama's transition team is already going through President Bush's executive orders in search of policies for the new president to reverse. He should start by scratching Bush's ban on embryonic stem-cell research.
If Obama stands for change, said Rich Lowry in the New York Post, why did he spend his Monday visit with Bush at the White House (click here for AP video via Slate) pleading for a new bailout for the mismanaged "corporate dinosaurs" of Detroit? In the campaign, he excoriated automakers for their "carbon-emitting sins," so a new era of protecting corporate failures is probably not the kind of change his fans had in mind.
There are plenty of "huge and positive changes on the way," said the San Francisco Chronicle in an editorial, and not all of them were discussed during Obama's "polite greetings" with Bush. Obama will reverse the stem-cell research ban, along with Bush's go-ahead for oil drilling on sensitive federal lands in Utah. The new president will dismantle the "offshore gulag" at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
"Those who think that they have just voted to legalize Utopia" should prepare to be disillusioned, said Christopher Hitchens in Slate. "The national treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen," and the new president won't be able to fix everything with "mere charm."
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Recent comments | 13 total
WE NEED TO GIVE THE PRESIDENT -ELECT A CHANCE AT THE PRESIDENCY,I,M HOPING AND PRAYING FOR GOOD CHANGES
sure, things are going to change, but real and good change always takes time. Do people know what the bailout looks like for Detroit? If it includes forcing the companies to make new cars more efficient and looking into green technology while reeducating current employees to meet these demands and stripping down any mismanagement, then that might not be a bad investment. Though perhaps we should let new, smaller companies who are less steeped in corporate corruption give it a shot too.
President Bush did NOT BAN embryonic stem-cell research, he limited FEDERAL FUNDING of research to existing stem-cell families. NO OTHER PRESIDENT (EVEN CLINTON) had ever allowed any other embryonic stem-cell research to be funded through federal monies. President Bush's orders allowed any stem-cell research to occur and only limited who received the taxpayers' payout. During the last 7+ years, many new avenues have been discovered that actually prove more valuable than the embryonic approach, but liberals would never mention the truth if it bit them in the groin. Amusingly, BO now wants to bail out the very corporations, the automakers , that are the main culprits of petroleum pollution. Got to pay off those uneducated, limited skilled, union workers who have destroyed the corporations with wages ($75/hr. plus benefits) higher than people who have real educations. Unions have already come out against any new green conditions placed on cars. They are afraid they the workers will be replaces with more robots who work cheaper and don't protest.
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