This Obama worship is silly. Now I hear that his followers want a national holiday in his honor, before his first day in office. These people are nuts. Sure, he is an inspirational leader(to some), one who will, or has, partly undone the legacy of slavery. But he is still a figurehead, like all our Presidents. If he really has a radical leftist agenda, it will be subsumed by the urgency to repair the economy. If he messes up, the Republicans will take back the Congress in two years. He has to reach out to all the factions and save the middle class. Otherwise, he will lose too much power after the midterms; then he really will have to cave-in. He needs some initial successes, but cannot bite off more than he can chew.

I use to be very liberal-beyond McGovernism. Eventually I had to break with liberals, over several issues
1. the second amendment
2. the first amendment ( PCism, speech codes, etc.)
3. illegal immigration
4. the liberal tendency to cooperate with corporate conservatism ( Pelosi never impeached Bush, did she? 24 Democratic senators voted for the Iraq war, didnt they?)

My philosophy may seem idiosyncratic, but I'm just calling it the way I see it.

If Obama tries to pass any socially radical legislation-before he stabilizes the economy- he will damage himself and fuel a Republican return. But at the same time, he has a very narrow time--frame to enact "progressive" legislation...once the Republicans make-up their 2008 losses in 2010, the Obama revolution is over.

Or maybe not. Obama wants to form his own version of the Maoist "Red Guards," a paramilitary-civilian force initially 250,000 strong, loyal only to him. If the "guaranteed" disaster strikes by next summer, these units will enforce his will, as the Congress and the courts transform the nation.