So, yeah, about those first few days

[brooksmoses]

I'm seeing a fair bit of startlement among some people in my friendslist regarding the things that Obama's done in his first few days in office. It's almost as if they had this expectation that, because the metaphorical scaffolding was still up and a lot of the superstructure was being assembled, he wasn't yet ready to actually issue orders and stuff.

There's really only one response to that thought, I think:

Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational Obama administration!

Comments

[rosefox]

I think it's more shock to see a politician keeping his campaign promises, including controversial ones.

[brooksmoses]

Fair enough, but the post I was particularly responding to seemed quite clear that a fair portion of the author's surprise was from the "breakneck speed" of it.

[seawasp]

What Rosefox said. He clearly Just Doesn't Get It. He could at least have had the decency to wait a few weeks, do some waffling, enact some questionable laws, before sneaking in a few actual promises kept.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

You only do it to taunt the Brits

There I was, happily thinking he was my president for a day or two, then I get to read about our bunch doing this and realise we're still stuck with the old guard 8-(
http://www.no2id.net/news/newsletters/newsletter.php?issue=115

[brooksmoses]

Oh, ugh. Yeah, yours clearly shared techniques with our old bunch.

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

From Politifact:
Obama keeps promises on his first day (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/jan/21/obama-keeps-promises-his-first-day/).

They even have an Obameter (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/) to list the promises kept, in the works, etc. The current count is

* Promise Kept 6
* Compromise 1
* Promise Broken 0
* Stalled 1
* In the Works 14
* No Action 488

I'm not sure that's at all bad considering he's only been in office three days!

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

I am impressed. I am very impressed.

[zeborah]

For me it's startling because in New Zealand there's no one person who has the power to make changes like that unilaterally. I keep forgetting that the US really is just a monarchy with a set of procedures for ensuring a high turnover rate.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Indeed. And here in the UK we have the Civil Service, which doesn't change with the government in power and acts as a damper on the system to prevent wild swings of policy happening too fast. I mean, in this case, people on my Friends List are happy about what's happening in the US, but sometimes a bit of delay is a good thing.