Trust in Washington

Most people don’t have a whole lot of faith in politicians. This is partially because the media tend to portray politicians as two-faced liars who are mostly out for themselves, and partially because a lot of politicians are two-faced liars who are mostly out for themselves.

This predominant view was a big reason why a lot of people – myself included, at first – didn’t have a lot of faith that a candidate like Barack Obama would have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected. But somehow, he was able to convince people that he wasn’t totally full of it, that we could actually believe in him and in ourselves and we wouldn’t get burned.

Obviously, the man hasn’t even taken office yet (though as David Letterman said, is anyone opposed to him taking over a little early?), but rumblings are already starting that we might actually have elected the man we thought we were electing.

First of all, there’s been a lot of debate lately within the Democratic Party about what to do with Joe Lieberman. Lieberman broke with the party on the Iraq war and has been photographed creepily kissing President Bush. His latest series of transgressions includes endorsing and openly campaigning for John McCain, speaking at the Republican National Convention and even campaigning for down-ticket Republicans – all while caucusing with the majority Democrats in the Senate and enjoying the committee chairmanship that comes along with that.

Lots of Democrats, myself included, don’t like Lieberman much and would like to see him out of power. President-elect Obama, on the other hand, has reportedly let party officials know that he’d like Lieberman to stay onboard. It’s unclear whether Obama wants him to retain his chairmanship, but either way it’s a move toward reconciliation both within the party caucus itself and between the Obama and McCain camps. It’s a first step away from campaigning and toward bipartisanship.

More importantly, though, Obama’s already started working toward fulfilling one of my favorite campaign promises: closing the gulag at Guantanamo Bay. Obama’s advisers are currently in the process of drafting a plan to ship the prisoners from Cuba to the mainland United States to stand trial in real live courts, with lawyers and judges and everything.

It’s speculated that some kind of hybrid court, midway between civilian courts and the kangaroo court military tribunals that had been in use, will have to be drafted to handle the unusual cases that would be tried. The plan as it stands has gotten good reviews from Democratic and Republican legal scholars alike.

Obviously, it would not be perfect, but it would be due process, it would be fair and it would stand up to American legal and moral standards. It’s still early, but so far Obama appears to actually be honoring his promises and his office as best he can. It’s still early, but he’s already a far cry from his predecessor.

It’s still early, but Obama might actually deserve our trust.