Barack Obama on the Move. Now I Feel It.

President Barack Obama is on the move down the long path of commitments he made in 2008. I mentioned on Tuesday that I felt ambivalent about the inaugural ceremonies Barack Obama - Three Degrees of Change.

Reading the morning news about his first full day of office, provided the lift and excitement that most people had Inauguration Day. The list was impressive:

• He reversed a Bush order that allowed Presidential papers to be sealed forever. There was a decisive blow for open government.
• He took steps to close the barbaric detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
• He began work on the difficult challenge of peace in the Middle East.
• He started the process towards withdrawing American troops from Iraq.
• He banned gifts from lobbyists to anyone in his administration.

Funny thing about this morning.

The past eight years I greeted each new day wondering what the President of the United States was going to do by noon to increase world tensions, fatten the wallets of his friends, crush the few remaining civil liberties Americans enjoy, and announce the appointment of another inept crony.

Instead I found progress, improvement, and a better world, and I had not yet finished my breakfast. That is something to celebrate.

The White House staff salary freeze was an unnecessary symbolic gesture, but I can live with it.