- By releasing top-secret memos detailing the CIA's involvement in using harsh methods to interrogate terrorism suspects, and the Bush administration's legal justifications for them, Obama is opening himself to charges that this will now hamper efforts to find out where the next attack will take place. The President has pledged never to do torture again, but he's not going to prosecute those who did the actual interrogating. Only the ones who came up with the idea in the first place.
- Making nice with world leaders who are not your friends (but would like to be): Shaking hands with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia. Working with Iran to obtain the release of an American-born journalist sent to prison on espionage charges, even as its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to tick off the Israelis. Lifting some restrictions on Cuban-Americans visiting and sending money to relatives in their former homeland. This approach, however, will not work on Iran or North Korea. They still won't drop their nuclear weapons programs.
- There is one area where Obama and Bush would have agreed: how to deal with Somali pirates. In the rescue of a kidnapped American captain, Navy snipers picked off three of the pirates. No money changed hands. Instead it was shoot first, negotiate later. Well, they may have to rethink that next time if Al Qaeda was ever involved.
Still, despite gripings by conservatives and Bush-era officials such as former Vice President Dick Cheney that America is less safe because of Obama, what the new president is doing is a refreshing change from the "my way or the highway" approach that led to two wars and a lot of hurt feelings among world leaders. Let's see if this continues to work.
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