Obama = change... or DEATH??

Is the Obama presidency going to be different from the Bush presidency? Some say no. Others say yes. While a few weeks is not long enough to judge how a four year term will end up, I think the answer right now is pretty definitively yes. In fact, this seems to me to be the fastest and most dramatic change in policy across the board than I have ever experienced or read about. Barack Obama seems to really be taking to heart his campaign slogan of "change". Already in his short term we have seen reversals of tons of Bush policies.

The first (and I think most important) change that Obama has made is that there is now a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. This massive mistake of a war is costing the U.S. way too much money in a world economy like today's. I never understood why we would want to spend our money killing foreigners instead of helping poor Americans. It just makes no sense.

Obama also changed the U.S. stance toward the Middle East in general. Instead of telling everyone over there what to do and generally treating the whole place like second class citizens, Obama said this on Al Arabiya (an Arab news station): "The Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives," he said. "There are extremist organizations -- whether Muslim or any other faith ... that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name.... Our administration [will] be very clear in distinguishing between organizations like Al Qaeda -- that ... espouse terror .... and people who may disagree with my administration". This is a 180 turn from Bush policies that confuse the different factions in Islam and generally disregard sovereignty in pursuit of terrorism.

Obama has also overturned the Mexico City policy, which required that the over 600 groups that receive State Department taxpayer funding pledge not to promote or perform abortions abroad. This is also a fairly dramatic departure from Bush's religiously motivated stance on abortion. (Why is it OK that presidents form policy based on religion anyways?)

Obama is also expected to lift some of the bans on stem cell research, which the religious right has repressed, at the cost of lives and quality of life of innocent sick Americans. Obama has also put into place strict guidelines about torture (Don't do it). How sad of a reflection on our society is it that we have to "renew our vows" about not torturing people? Add in the reversal of policy involving the slowdown and stop of global warming and the massive economic stimulus package (of course, that is more a product of going from a Republican to a Democratic president rather than Bush to Obama specifically), and you have some pretty significant (read: massive) change going on in our government. So when you hear people insist that Obama is going to be exactly the same as Bush or that he isn't doing anything different, you can just laugh and ignore them.