Obama’s Strategery

Bush-appointed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Bush tax cuts in place. Wariness and drama with the Clintons. Reagan-style line-item budget-cutting plans.

This is what Washington looks like with President-elect John McCain, er, George Bush — I mean, Barack Obama. This inexperienced, largely unknown, history-making “blank slate” is doing a few things that may cause many who voted against him to sigh with relief.

Of course, those who supported him from the left are surely fit to be tied. What happened to “spreading the wealth around”? Did Obama decide that perhaps Joe the Plumber had a point? And how about those Bush tax cuts that candidate Obama beat John McCain over the head with during the campaign? He now says he will keep them in place and let them die out when they expire in 2011. Are we to believe that a president gearing up for a 2012 reelection bid would, effectively, raise taxes just before an election year? Not likely.

And let’s not forget how candidate Obama slammed Hillary Clinton during the primaries for her support for the war in Iraq, slammed John McCain for his support for the war, refused to acknowledge that the surge McCain fought for that resulted in Robert Gates replacing Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of Defense was a success (until Bill O’Reilly forced him into a corner on the matter). Now Gates will serve as secretary of Defense in the Obama administration. Wow.

I fully expect an announcement within a few days that the Obama first family getaway will be a ranch in Crawford, Texas, the first dog will be named Barney, and Barack Obama will discover a long-lost brother named Jeb who just may, himself, have a future in national politics.

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