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Glenn:
I recognize that many Americans, from just about all walks of life, share the following sentiment:
More than anything else, Obama's endless invocation of the "change" mantra was not about promises of sharp ideological or even policy shifts -- as needed as those may be -- but instead, was about changing this core Beltway dynamic, delousing the Washington culture.
Obama's decision to "get along by going along" with the FISA amendments in July persuaded me that however much I might wish that "delousing" is what Obama means by "change", I seriously doubt he means to disrupt the "core Beltway dynamic". Leaving Joe Lieberman as chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is another example of how the "core Beltway dynamic" is likely to continue purring along for some time to come.
I think Obama is more of a Beltway Establishment type than either of the past two Democratic presidents, Clinton and Carter. That may actually help Obama accomplish more, in view of the strength-sapping battles about "legitimacy" both Carter and Clinton had to fight with the Beltway Establishment. But I think Obama views "change" as generational and incremental, much like John F. Kennedy, and not as transformative in the tradition of Progressive Era Reformers.
Franklin Roosevelt's senior appointments (or indeed his 1932 campaign) did not particularly portend the change that came -- much of the ferment of the New Deal came from activists at sub-Cabinet levels and in the agencies (which of course were a favorite FDR technique for side-stepping Washington gridlock). So I could be wrong about Obama and real reform. And not even FDR changed Washington overnight, or indeed in a single term of office. So even for the more hopeful among us, it would be prudent to lengthen and manage our expectations.
