Obama

"Upon taking office, Obama ordered all secret U.S. prisons
closed immediately, and the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed within a year; he stopped the torture of American prisoners; granted access to all U.S. detainees to the International Red Cross; ended the practice by which detainees could be sent to countries where they might be tortured; froze the salaries of all White House officials making more than $100,000; ordered all government agencies to "adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure" regarding Freedom of Information Act requests; ordered all administration appointees to take an ethics pledge; ended a government ban on funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad; and revoked Executive Order 13233, which placed limits on public access to the records of former presidents."

(from my Harper's weekly newsletter - join! Its good.)

I think a lot of this is to make it look like he has had a progressive start, and well, it looks like he has had a progressive start. Its low lying fruit though.

The whole idea that the US would revoke funding to nations or organizations that offered abortions (or even counseling of options) has got to be one of the more twisted republican platforms. Its like a church and state porno movie.

(If anyone is a Boston Legal fan, they argued a case on this issue quite well)

And I didn't realize, but how's this for craziness with a capital K?

"It was widely anticipated that Obama would sign the executive order yesterday, on the 36th anniversary of Roe. In 1993 former president Bill Clinton had revoked the policy on that day, while George Bush reinstated the policy on his first day in office in 2001, the day before the Roe anniversary." - Source.

Order 13233 was instated by The Dub to prevent Ronald Reagan's papers from being released to historians. Read this link, its pretty fascinating.

I think its going to be fun watching the political intrigue uncover over the next year. Then some sort of scandal will make for depressing fixation as it all unravels again.