Obama: disappointment & hope

I struggle with this almost every day. While the joy of Barack Obama's election remains in my heart, my mind is just not at ease. Not by a long shot.

Even before the election, I was worried about his rah-rah approach to the war in Afghanistan. Now there are 100,000 US troops on the ground. We'll just have to see if those withdrawal dates materialize.

When the president took questions from the House Republicans last month in Baltimore, he finally got tough with all their foolishness. But the GOP continues its (well-documented) barrage of lies, and there is a much stronger repartee from MSNBC than from the White House.

Then there is Obama'e ongoing waving of the bipartisan flag, even after months of the perpetual NO in Congress and a Senate that uses the filibuster more often than it uses the bathroom.

And there is Guantanamo. And the mild response to the Honduran coup. And the new US air base in Colombia. And the snail's pace of immigration reform. There are those Wall St. buddies (who after the havoc they caused are supposedly still deserving of obscene bonuses.)

Yesterday the Justice Department cleared Bush's torture lawyers. They weren't even disbarred. The only verdict: "poor judgment." (This never could have happened in Nuremberg in 1946.)

But I'm not giving up hope. The president remains a very far cry from the war criminal duo that was running the show for eight years.Maybe he has some good surprises around the corner. Maybe he will come up with some good Roosevelt-style, hard-nosed gumption and push the Senate Democrats hard enough to come up with the 51 votes that could give us the healthcare public option after all.

Hope is good.