Well - Hillary almost certainly in as SecState, an ex-Marine looking set to become the NSA, a good chance Gates staying on as SecDef, a fiscal conservative in at Treasury, refugees from the Clinton administration sucking up White House jobs like candy on Easter - it's pretty clear Obama is moving, has moved to the center. Question is what does it all mean? Is he really a pragmatic centrist? If so, does that mean he's also therefore a cunning rationalist who saw the electoral process for what it is - a farce [recent poll revealed that only 2% of Obama voters actually knew anything about his policy positions before voting] - and did what he had to do to get elected and now being elected will have his way with the beast on his terms? Or has he [happily?] relinquished control of the process to the unstained-by-idealist-fancy Clintonites he's surrounded himself with? If so, would that mean he really has no governing ideology - and if that's true what then will he do with all the uber lefties who spearheaded his election when they grow restive and disillusioned? Or is it simply that the full weight of the burden he has taken on has forced him into a change of posture?
Despite my endless playing of Cassandra to Obama's Troy there was always a chance that the man who ran for President would be significantly different from the man who is President - but even if that's the case here it's still far from clear how real the difference is - and, possibly of more import, what exactly is motivating it.
