Lowered expectations and the Honeymoon is already over

It's not even December yet!

Lowered Expectations. Obama is no longer the One. [Link]

Newsweek, Time, the Washington Post, 60 Minutes and, of course, The O Network (formerly known as MSNBC) have all run wild with this stuff. Depicting Obama as FDR or Lincoln has become a staple of the self-proclaimed “objective” media.

I was on Fox News the other night to throw some cold water on this Obama-as-Lincoln stuff. Alan Colmes of Hannity & Colmes chastised me, asking if we shouldn’t give Obama “a chance to actually spread his wings and fly a little bit” before disparaging him.

Fine. I actually agree with that. Conservatives should not denounce Obama’s performance before he’s had a chance to, you know, perform.

But, shouldn’t we also hold off on comparing the guy to FDR and Lincoln before he’s done anything?

Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal delayed. [Link]

It has been an extraordinary decade of progress in public acceptance of gays, with gay marriage, for example, going from a Falwellian horror fantasy to gin up donations for halting American moral decay to something courts are willing to grant as a right, and the voting public can get close to supporting when asked. And as the article mentions, "Today, gay activists cite national polls that show public sentiment, unlike in 1993, support removing the ban." See one such poll here, from early 2007, with 55 percent support for open gay service in the military.

I imagine if Obama makes this change cleanly at any time in his term, he'll be fondly remembered. Still, his apparent unwillingness to be bold on something he considers a matter of both justice and wise policy--and that he has clear political support on--should be disconcerting to his fans.

His picks for cabinet posts seem more moderate than the far left wants. [Link]

Little did we know that “Change we can believe in” really meant “Change that will delight the Right and freak out the Left.” But if the rumors and hints about President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet picks are any clue, it may be that both conservatives and liberals had Barack Obama pegged wrong.

If several months ago someone had said that the Obama administration would be chocked full of Clinton administration retreads and have a national security team featuring the woman who advocated bombing Iran to smithereens in the event it launched a nuclear attack on Israel, few would have believed it. But that’s what seems to be in the offing.

As for the national security team, many conservatives are elated by the prospect that Hillary Clinton — rather than Bill Richardson or John Kerry — will be heading to Foggy Bottom. During the campaign, she often played the role of hard-liner while Obama played to the netroot gallery.

And. [Link]

In two politically shrewd bids to begin gaining support from the over 57 million Americans who voted for his opponent only weeks ago, Barack Obama backed Senator Joseph Lieberman’s proposition to retain chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and the president-elect is seriously considering the appointment of Hillary Clinton, the junior senator from New York, for the secretary of state cabinet position. The harshest criticism has not come from the Right (which battled Hillary Clinton for years) but from the Left.

Segments of Obama’s more radical supporters — mostly those who were quick to embrace the most liberal viable candidate — are not happy with his most recent political ploys. In their eyes, Lieberman betrayed the party by criticizing now President-elect Barack Obama and, even worse, by backing John McCain for president and speaking at the Republican Convention. And the possibility that Clinton will be added to the high level position of secretary of state is a far cry from Obama’s call for “Change.”

And. [Link]

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama's national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.

The activists are uneasy not only about signs that both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates could be in the Obama Cabinet, but at reports suggesting that several other short-list candidates for top security posts backed the decision to go to war.

Change they're not seeing. [Link]

Look, there are a lot of talented progressives who could be in an Obama cabinet.

Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winner in economics and a critic of corporate globalization. He should be Treasury Secretary.

Senator Russ Feingold is a champion of civil liberties. He should be Attorney General.

Robert Greenstein is head of Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He would make a much better OMB director.

Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, would be a tremendous Secretary of Labor.

And if Obama really wanted change, if he really wanted to honor progressives who backed him early on and then did the grunt work against McCain, he’d nominate Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State.

That sure would indicate a welcome departure from empire as usual.

But at this point, progressives are getting absolutely nothing from Obama.