The times are changing

The presidential transition has been fascinating. For seemingly, the first time, someone seemed to actually want to hit the ground running and capable of doing it. He had most of his cabinet identified before the holidays. It was a sure sign of strength and seriousness about change.

So many things to fix. Everyday some other extremely qualified person was announced and given the script and mandate and many of them are already in place, changing things. And after that was done, he kept his agenda spinning in the news cycles. Already he's done things like take away the global gag order on abortion, and taken important steps to close Gitmo, and improve fuel efficiency. On the near term agenda are stem cells and hopefully, the restoration of the ban on coastal oil drilling that lapsed because of the McCain political campaign.

This stiumlus package has been interesting to watch. The Republicans really don't have any leadership at this point. If they work with the President and the Democrats, they get little of the credit. If they oppose and stall, they could be seen as obstructionists who are just trying to be contrary. And when things turn around, they'll get slammed for being unhelpful. So it's interesting to see how the Republicans handle this. Of course, it would be nice if they actually thought about what would be right for the country instead of for their own self interest, but I'm too cynical to think they're capable of that.