THIS JUST IN!

The Bush Administration had terror suspects tortured. Oh my God... who would have thought?!

I admit to being on the fence about President Obama for the past three months. I don't know a fiduciary fund from a fickle finger of fate and you've got plenty of expert naysayers on both sides telling us the bailout was one or the other. So, no comment. I just don't have a clue whether this bailout and budget will work or not, but I know that its too early to max out my credit card just yet. So, for the most part, the President's performance for the first three months has been average - which is just fine.

But over the last week or so, I've become increasingly impressed. First, the way he let the Navy handle the Pirate situation means doom and gloom for the pirates. Quite frankly, I'm not entirely sure why we didn't handle the whole thing over to the Navy Seals as a training exercise a long time ago. Here boys, have some bullets and have at 'em. But when push came to shove, we not only saved the life of an American hero, but we showed the rest of the world that Navy Seals are bad ass once again! And all the President had to do was get out of the way. Good President. Smart President.

Next, he defied conventional wisdom with regards to Cuba by being the first person to acknowledge that our "blockade" of Cuba hadn't done diddly squat to bring about the end of communism in that nation. I'm surprised that the Reaganite Repubs hadn't figured this out years ago. What brought down the Berlin Wall? Was it rampant militarism and constant vigilance? Or was it the desire of young, easily impressionable and revolutionary aged, kids for blue jeans and rock and roll? The American Brand is extremely seductive and totally corruptive. We need to export it like the plague! Instead of dropping bombs on North Korea, we should drop IPODS and Girls Gone Wild videos. The President seems to recognize that any chink in that wall that keeps US goods out of Cuba will allow us to corrupt that nation's youth faster than a full fledged invasion of Cuba with nothing but Navy Seals. OOH RAH!

And finally, the President did something that neither the last two Presidents could do. He moved past partisan bickering and Congressional hearings, and just went ahead and came to his own conclusion about governmental wrongdoing. Instead of bogging down Congress with endless hearings and political posturing about who was doing the right thing and when, President Obama simply released the reports on torture during the previous administration. And then he pardoned everyone involved. Nobody is going to jail. The nation takes its well-deserved black eye and then moves on. And the sooner we all forget about it, the sooner it becomes history. Imagine if they'd taken that approach with the Mitchell report? Heck, we might not even be in this current economic tailspin had Congress been more concerned with the economy than with whether A-Rod was injecting a banned substance into his rear to get another 50 feet on his home run!

Now, to be fair, there are a fair number of intelligence implications of these reports being revealed. However, I think the implications pale in comparison to the knowledge that these things were done. And believe me, the people who were having this done to them, already knew, and already hate us. So, I'm not sure that the downside is all that large. After all, if you want to convince the rest of the world that the bad old days are behind us, the first thing you have to do is wash your hands of those practices and allow everyone to see that you have a clean slate. In the end, I think we are actually safer than we were yesterday because we've taken our first real steps towards combating that perception in the rest of the world that America is evil and hypocritical. They may not like what we stand for, but at least they'll know that we do keep our word and cherish our laws.

So, for now, I'm saying that President Obama has impressed me this week. I don't know that I'll always be on his side, but so far, he hasn't stumbled in my opinion. And eventually, I think he might even quiet some of the polarizing vitriol in this country - which would be a great legacy for any president.