avevale_intelligencer | (no subject)

From the New York Times, on Obama's first day as President-elect:

“The one thing he is not going to do is let anyone think he’s undermining the president,” said Mr. Craig, who has advised Mr. Obama on foreign policy. “There’s only one president, and he’ll take pains to make sure nothing he does is taken as undermining President Bush.”

As counterpoint to this, I'm currently trying and failing to find a news report I saw yesterday which suggests that the reverse is not the case, that the Bush administration is frantically abolishing as much environmental regulation and such like as they can so that it will take more time and trouble for Obama's lot to put it all back together. So much for a smooth transition of power.

I don't think I've asked this before, because the last time it happened was pre-blog for me; why is it that after you've had a change of government in America, the outgoing lot get two extra months to make more trouble for their successors? It's like paying someone who hates you for their house and then letting them live in it for the next two months. It's obvious they're going to trash the place--and despite all the warm fuzziness about working together and everyone on both sides loving America, we all know it's true. I'm quite sure that Clinton spent his last two months going out of his way to make things difficult for Bush 2, and so on back.

Not looking for an argument (see previous posts), just asking why it's arranged like that.

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Yes, I've already commented elsewhere that I get the distinct impression that Bush may spend his last few days of power throwing screaming tantrums and his toys out of the pram.

I'm most worried that he'll try to mire us in another war and excuse himself with "but we needed to invade because they looked at us funny" or somesuch. Which, actually, is pretty much what he did with Iraq.

He's certainly done a lot of work setting up for an invasion of Iran, though I suppose anywhere they can loot for oil would do. But he may not have enough time left to get something of that scale sorted. And of course he won't be around to give out all the 'reconstruction' to his accomplices.