Make up your mind!

This is what I've always felt about Obama. I've heard a lot of folks complain that he's just a skilled Rhetorician and is all talk. That he makes all kinds of glorious promises but never delivers. But the more important (and painful) reality is that even in these glorious promises, he doesn't actually say anything.

It's not just a matter of throwing around euphemisms that stand for something else. It's euphemisms and statements and policies that mean nothing at all. In a rare moment of actually making a judgement, Obama said, "The decisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable." That is probably one of the most commital statements he has made in his term thusfar, but in reality, all it commits him to is doing things differently than Bush and his administration.

So he promises to change everything. We're gonna close Guantánamo! But we're going to construct a legal regime to decide who should be detained indefinitely. How is that any different!?

Finally someone sees it -- and not even a conservative, but Rachel Maddow. All his re-branding of "prolonged detention" and rhetoric about "the rule of law" is just a clever way to change nothing. That's really what Obama wants: The status quo -- but it has to seem like everything has changed. He will keep from rocking the boat, but at the same time use flowery words to make it sound like he has swooped in and reversed every unpopular policy of the Bush administration.

Maddow has caught him in this. And I appreciate it.