The Establishment Strikes Back

Bill Clinton was our first black white President.

Barack Obama is going to be our first black Democratic Republican President.

Looks like he's going to surround himself with the old DLC Republican-Lite crowd - Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Not to mention some real Republicans like Gates staying on at Defense.

That's actually OK. He's not a guy who's all about principles. He's about policy and getting pragmatic stuff done. His policy is probably going to have a progressive flavor but what this is really all about is that the Establishment has been restored.

There won't be any insane wars. Only sensible ones. The neocons will get kicked to the curb. Our American Taliban - Southern-flavored Christianists - will not be setting social policy. The people who want to show that big, intrusive government doesn't function by making sure that the big government is intrusive and doesn't function - are now going to be gone.

The people in there now, in Washington, will be the people who believe in making government work.

That will be a huge relief. It's a shame that some principles (like obeying the Constitution and setting limits on Executive power) will be ignored, but I think we'll see some things happen which are good for this country. The old responsible Establishment has returned.

Think of Barack Obama as a moderate Republican kind of guy - the kind of guy who has the pragmatism, decency, and sense of civic responsibility that old-fashioned Republicans used to have.*

Then you won't be disappointed.

*Supposedly.