"I could get used to this."

Me, too. What a relief!

Thank you President Obama!

This is what I hoped for when I supported his campaign. Are we finally returning to sanity in this country?

I'm not quite as optimistic. Obama did say we would only use interrogation techniques allowed for in the Army Manual. But the manual was revised in 2005 to include 10 classified pages on interrogation. Depending on what is now allowed, the process of using various techniques described as torture last week by military commissions authority, Susan Crawford, could still be allowed.

GET used to it, because barring tragedy or the Republicans becoming saner than seems possible, you'll have eight years of it.

And so far I see no reason to doubt that he is someone who 'means what he says and does what he means' as unusual as that is for a politician.

We won't agree with everything. Some of his positions may horrify us -- like his position in favor of extending the death penalty when it should be abolished totally.

Some may simply annoy us. I don't think the President of the United States should accept the honorary Presidency of an organization that discriminates in it's charter - the Boy Scouts -- even if many local organizations ignore this -- and that has successfully gone to court to protect this right.

And he may call some 'close ones' in ways we don't like.

But overall he and we are moving strongly in the right direction. Some of us may never learn that 'the perfect is the enemy of the good' but hopefully many of us will and enjoy the hope that seems totally justified so far.

Props to Prup for getting it exactly right.

Aaaargh. "It's" for "its." Having just watched a Karen Williams routine in which she said how much she hated that, and threatening to shoot any one who did it -- and agreeing with her -- I miss one of my own.

The 18 lb cat draped over my typing arm is not a sufficient excuse.

Props to Prup for getting it exactly right.

Seconded. :)

>>Al Qaeda... could only hope that we would respond unthinkingly and do the dirty work ourselves.

Well, duh. It's amazing that the Bush Administration was so blinded by righteousness that they didn't realize they were reacting EXACTLY like Bin Laden wanted.

What an incompetent tool. I wish I were there in Washington on Tuesday to cheer his leaving.

He's going to keep @10% of the hard left and hard right perpetually pissed-off, but I hope he keeps moving forward this boldly. We certainly need it.

It's nice not to be an international pariah anymore.

Closing Gitmo and banning torture. Are these moves "liberal" or "centrist"? Inquiring minds....

Well, duh. It's amazing that the Bush Administration was so blinded by righteousness that they didn't realize they were reacting EXACTLY like Bin Laden wanted.

Oh, I think the administration realized all right. The pity is that the voting public was too stupid to figure it out en masse in 2004. Surely bin Laden putting out a video right before the election was enough to prompt thoughtful people to think about their motives, but alas, thoughtful people don't decide elections.

I could get used to this.

But beware of getting too used to this. Obama is using executive power to do a lot of the right things to reverse the wrong things done previously, but that doesn't mean that something more concrete doesn't need to be done to keep future presidents from repeating the wrong things done previously.

Part of that is accountability for things that were outside the law.

Part of that is putting some of what Obama is doing in executive orders into law, so that a subsequent president can't cut the opposite direction as easily as Obama moved in the right direction.

"It's amazing that the Bush Administration was so blinded by righteousness that they didn't realize they were reacting EXACTLY like Bin Laden wanted." -JC

You think Bush/Repubs gave a damn what al Qaeda wanted? Their actions just gave them cover for power-grabs and treasury-raiding. Nothing else mattered.

And all the sheeple went, "Ba-ah!"

Some of us may never learn that 'the perfect is the enemy of the good'... -Prup

Whistles and slowly backs out of room.

Meh, I can't help it, I'm a bitch, but I always come back around.

He said what he would do and is doing what he said. And the world breathes a sigh of gladness.

It appears now that Obama, like Vulcans, never bluffs.

Pass the word.

It's much easier to think of Bush as incompetent than corrupt. It somehow hurts a little less.

it's amazing to listen to this white house briefing and to hear how deeply embedded is the fear in the white house press corps who guzzled down every dribble the bushies directed their way.

they truly believe that sticking a flashlight up a bound man's ass has kept them safe.

it's always interesting to me who they think the torturers might be ... will they offer up their own children for that duty?

Wow, you mean "freedom" means freedom again. Now I can call Tenet's award what it really is, The Presidential Medal of Sycophancy and Incompetence.

Now President Obama can award the real Freedom Medal to someone who actually deserves it, Coleen Rowley.

There is no one on the conservative side of the aisle who is more disappointed in Obama's election that is bin Laden. Bush accomplished all of bin Laden's goals for the country by getting us mired in two wars and bankrupting the country. That was bin Laden's dream and it became reality with the help of the bush administration.

Far be it from me to intrude with reality but, do those hellfire missiles from Predator drones count as intelligence or law enforcement ?

I give Obama credit for knowing how to push your buttons.

Everyone has missed the most important words in Obama's statement:

". . .the US intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism . . ."

Hopefully, gone are the days of the "War on Terrorism."

The matter of the detainees at Gitmo is a real mess. Fixing this and all the other messes will take a significant amount of time and all the help the U.S. can get.

Given the geographic location of Guantanamo Bay Navy Base, perhaps the Cubans can be persuaded to accept the remaining detainees along with the property they are standing on.

I think Alcatraz would be a nice spot. But don't get your hopes too high.

Far be it from me to intrude with reality

Why yes, Mike K, you are pretty damn far from reality.

I love being able to read a sentence that begins "The president said..." and not have my stomach turn.