Run for the hills, the world is coming to an end!!!! The sky is falling and Obama's to blame for everything!!! ZOMG look at the stock markets, clearly 2 days in office and Obama's the sole reason why everything's tanking!!

ahem.

Let's take a moment to calm down (just a bit) and look at the "radical" leftist policies Obama has enacted in his first couple of days-

1) Treatment of prisoners- Obama has made it clear that prisoners are to be treated in accordance with the regulations set out by the U.S Army Manual (clearly a  commie pinko manifesto hell bent on surrenderin' to the terrists') and NOT according to an edict written by the Attorney General under Bush. Obama did not write the U.S Army manual, the U.S Army did. What is being rescinded is a very interesting document written shortly after 9/11 which states that torture is defined as any pain "equivalent to organ failure or death" and that therefore everything else is pretty much fair game, which is a pretty wide margin for interpretation (for example, hanging someone up by their hands for hours on end or locking them in a box the size of a large footlocker for long periods or simulating drowning conditions isn't considered equivalent to "organ failure or death" and therefore was okay)

Does this mean that terrorists are going to be pampered? Nope, not by a long shot. What it does mean is that there are clear guidelines, which were determined by the U.S military (and not the civillian AG), that will dictate exactly how prisoners can be treated. If you have issues with this clearly radical policy, please go and protest in front of the U.S Army for their leftist, anti-american document.

2) Guantanamo- is clearly a failed operation- before you scream "die liberal scum!!!" take a moment to hear me out on this one. I've always been a firm believer that hard numbers and results bear out whether or not something is actually working. And I'm sorry folks, but the numbers for Guantanamo are absolutely shitty. Did you know that under Bush, more than half of all the "terrorists" brought to Gitmo have been released without any charges? This was largely because most of the folks sent to Gitmo were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and the CIA was paying hard cash for prisoners. Local police forces and militias, especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan knew that they'd get a cool 10 grand (or 25 grand? I'm not sure) for everyone they turned over to the Americans, so anyone in even slightly questionable circumstances, including foreign tourists, were fair game.

Now, Obama closing Gitmo is a good thing. Internationally, it's existence is a big stain on the U.S image, and quite frankly you really don't need it. You didn't need a Gitmo in WW1 or 2, you didn't need it during Korea, Vietnam -OR- to defeat the Soviet Union, who quite frankly was a much stronger and more deadly opponent than AQ. So you can certainly do without it now! Don't worry. He's not going to just free everyone there lock stock and barrel. Most of the folks that are in Gitmo now have been there for a couple years at least so they have a pretty good idea who is a terrorist and who is not. For example, Murat Kurnaz wasn't a terrorist, they determined this pretty shortly after he arrived there but held him for 5 years anyway.

What Obama has done is put a stop on everything for 120 days, in which case they're going to basically take all the terrorists in Gitmo and ship them stateside, then process the remaining detainees out.

3) Lobbying rules- I honestly can't see conservatives arguing this one, in fact you should be happy with this. He's made it so that anyone working in government now CANNOT leave and become a lobbyist to that government for the private sector or other special interest group. This gets rid of the old corrupt dynamic of government employee/senior civil servant who develops connections with, I don't know, a defense contractor (probably works hard to award that company a lucrative contract) then leaves government service to be employed by that same company as a lobbyist back to the government.

4) Middleast policy- to be determined. Seriously, too early to tell where he's going to go with this one. On Iraq I suspect he's actually going to carry out the playbook developed by Bush, which will be to withdraw the majority of the troops and leave about 18,000 to 30,000 garrisoned in 4 mega-bases (way out in the countryside, not in the middle of a crowded city where they can be easily shelled) Remember, Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith all seriously believed that within six months of the invasion this would be the case and most of the troops would be out of country. It's just taken six years and thousands of casualties more than expected.

5) Russia and eastern europe- also too early to make any definitive statements

6) Economic stimulus package- This one I'm not sure about. There's no easy answers and no matter which way you cut it, things are still going to get a lot worse before they start to get better. The stimulus package, depending on how it's implemented, may succeed in accelerating the timeline for recovery or it could be a complete boondoggle.