Obama the Garbage Man.

on the surface this might seem an unflattering image. Its not a very romantic position in our society, cleaning up other peoples trash. However it is a very important position. If we did not have people willing to perform this dirty and unrewarding task we would all end up drowning in a sea of our own trash. Obama is being called upon to clean up the incredible amount of trash and garbage left behind after the last eight years.

I started thinking about this image when looking over some potential civil rights topics. If there is a single area Bush can be held solely accountable for destroying it is our civil liberties and reputation for justice. Think about the numerous scandals revolving around law and justice in this country over the last eight years. The outing of valerie plame, the us attorney firings, the torture at gitmo, the imprisonment of innocent people at gitmo, extraordinary rendition, anything involving Hans von Spakovsky to name a few. The government institutions charged with protecting liberties and justice are infested with rot. Obama has his work cut out.

Obama will also tasked with restoring a non-political role and professionalism to the government agencies under control of the executive branch. Obama will be in charge of putting in place new rules and ethical guidelines for these agencies to replace the ones written by Bush. Reorienting these agencies back towards doing their jobs after the last eight years spent in finding ways to avoid that will not be easy. This is one of the reasons the obama transition team is so important, they have a lot to do.

Bush has failed in everything but his negotiations with N Korea. Every domestic thing he has touched has turned septic. He is the anti-midas. Simply seeing him talk about the economy automatically makes people believe the opposite. Obama has to restore trust and honesty to the white house. The expectations are great indeed.

Not only are we looking towards obama to clean up after the last eight years of disaster but we need him accomplish his own goals on health care and on energy. He has needs to get bin laden and get out of iraq. He has set lofty goals in Afghanistan as well. Obama certainly has the greatest set of challenges facing any president since fdr. I have confidence he is up to the task of taking out the trash and cleaning up the country.