Obamanation!

I have internet at my house again, but I am posting this from school, because I have spent the last half hour being distracted from my work by reading about President Obama (isn't that cool to say?!) online.

Living, as I do, in Ireland, I have been rather out of touch with what's been going on back in AmericaLand. Specifically, I have been curious about how the new president's term has been going. So I am now hooked on this website, which tracks Obama's first 100 days in office. It's updated all day by different journalists as things happen, and is great for someone like me that doesn't get the constant media bombardment. (I don't have a tv, so if I want to see news I have to seek it out.) And, in these first ten days, I have been happy to see a definite feminist stance! On his fourth day in office he lifted the ban, put in place by Bush, on federal funding for family planning agencies that "promote or give information about" abortion. And the first law he signed was supporting equal pay rights in the workplace for women. (And look, he keeps campaign promises! Wow!) As a proud vagina-American, this makes me very happy. And it just makes me wonder about all those "feminists" who support(ed) Sarah Palin. Do you really think any of this would have happened if McCain had been elected? Certainly the ban wouldn't get lifted during a McCain administration.

I also found an interesting editorial that characterizes Obama as a "liberal imperialist." It's an interesting article, and a pretty strong thesis. However, I wouldn't call Obama a "humanitarian imperialist," at least not in reference to his support of military action in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His express reasons for action in those countries is U.S. security. Now, in my opinion, war is always a great tragedy, but if intelligence shows that there is a direct threat to your country, then it is a leader's responsibility to protect the country and neutralize the threat. Preferably this should get done without, you know, killing, but I'm a little too cynical to believe that diplomacy can always win. Iraq never posed any threat to the U.S., and all the half-assed flimsy excuses that the Bush administration came up with to go in there-- Al Qaeda, WMDs, etc-- were unfounded, and millions of dollars (not to mention lives) were poured into the country for no real reason while groups that were actually making direct threats to the U.S. went ignored. (I remember an article a few years ago in The Onion, in response to Kim Jong Il's threats... "Bush on North Korean Threat: We Must Invade Iraq!" It went to "quote" Bush as saying things like "This threat in North Korea must be dealt with, so it is imperative that we send troops to Iraq.") The people who destroyed the World Trade Center and killed thousands of civilians live in Afghanistan. If we have to resort to violence, at least it should be directed at the right people. That isn't an attempt at cultural or political hegemony, it's just security.

Sorry, that turned into kind of a rant! Well, what else is a 'blog for?

Also, isn't it interesting that all my sources for information on the White House are British?