Reply #16: You'll end up getting lots of flames for this, probably

[JeffR]

but you've presented a very good summary. It's precisely opinions such as yours that the Obama admin needs to consider. We all do, every damn body in the tent.

I do disagree with the notion that a clear policy philosophy is being established. I don't think so. There may be hints of it, but at this point I think all of us are still reading tea leaves. I don't mean to advance the "but he's only been in office for..." argument here, just to make the point that even the evaluation you mention - and thank you for making a rare distinction here on DU between evaluation and judgment - is at best premature simply because we haven't yet seen what the consequences of some of these actions will be. I'm also convinced, whether I agree with particular actions he's taken or disagree with them, that this man is not an ideologue. And I won't be surprised if the single most noteworthy aspect of his presidency, when we do get a chance to judge it in retrospect, is pragmatism. So I doubt if an identifiable "policy philosophy" will be found among our tea leaves. (And BTW, I realized that tea leaves have taken on a connotation recently that I don't mean to insinuate here. Stupid tea-baggers.)

There's also been a few things I've seen recently that sound like signals that EFCA and DADT are not "off the table" so while I'm still wary, I can't follow your leap on these.