Heh.

Well I think if you asked 1000 democrats whose era Obama wanted to move past, they'd say Bush, not Clinton. I'm sure you're right that Obama must have talked about the Clintons as something to move beyond, but not so much as he ran against Bush.

Anything that encourages me to keep hoping Obama will try to govern from the center is all to the good. I've always expected that Obama would have little choice but to disappoint the wingiest fringe. My guess is that he tries to get through one or two little symbolic pilot programs for thing like National Service, and that's about it. In my experience, that's been a presidential staple, little token pilot programs. As you say, meme chose. [I don't do latin, but I do French. Thank you for not calling me a surrender monkey.]

As someone who still wants a soupcon ofmoderate "hopey change," I count myself a pube's width less cynical than you, Tully. Not that I don't smile when I think of naive lefty college activists (like the ones who accost me with clipboards on Boylston street in Boston) getting their noses rubbed in a smelly pile of meme chose. :-)

BTW, about Rahm Emmanuel being a lefty as you claimed. Since I had already heard he did a stint as something of an investment banker, I thought "hmm, a lefty investment banker?, what a queer creature." So I did a quick check of his liberal rankings from his congressional stint. He was like 130-something. Not exactly Karl Marx.
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I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel. -Horace Walpole