I hear there have been some useful changes in civil rights and the environment (other than a real policy for averting climate catastrophe!) but I don't know the specifics. On the issues I follow closely, it's a another Bush term: at its best, Bush the father, but mostly the son. The rhetoric is different, for sure, but it's so uncoupled from performance that I scarcely listen to the talk any more.
Yes, there still is a dime's worth of difference between the parties--though not a whole lot more than that--but at this point, I wouldn't give a dime for the rhetoric alone. If he backs up his words about a "nuclear -free world" with meaningful steps in that direction, I'll give him credit for it: but he hasn't done so yet, and I really don't expect it. Looking at the Republicans, I can hardly regret my vote and support for him, and I will surely vote for him in 2012. But not because I expect from him the change we need: in the absence of a yet-nonexistent citizens' movement that will change the political environment to which he responds.
Certainly in style, and in some respects in policy, he's far from being a Bush-type Republican. But he's just as far from what we need as he is from McCain and Palin.
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