Obama Discreet Until January 20th

The countdown to the end of George Bush’s presidency has started. Obama’s team announces that he will cancel several presidential decrees as soon as he assumes office. Obama steps back to Chicago to prepare for the presidency.

When he was invited to the White House four years ago, as all newly-elected members of Congress are, Barack Obama had preferred the buffet to the snapshot with George W. Bush. At the end of the session, the president hailed to the young senator from Illinois. “Come over here, please”, the host said. “I hope you don’t mind me giving you a small piece of advice.” “Not at all, Mr. President,” the young senator replied, glorified by his prophetic speech two months earlier at the Democratic National Convention. “You have a bright future, a very bright future. But I have been in this city for quite a while now, and let me tell you, it can be harsh. Everyone will wait for you to make a faux pas, and you know what I mean, so take care of yourself,” the president warned.

A year and a half later, in March 2006, during a dinner between journalists and Washington politicians, George W. Bush had pinned the Democratic rising star once more: “Senator Obama, I would like to make fun of you,” the president said before the audience. “But joking about you is like making fun of the Pope. Give me some material to work with here. You know, mispronounce something,” Bush Junior joked.

Last Thursday, the atmosphere wasn’t as casual when both men met at the White House for the ritual of passage between the soon-to-be former president and his successor. Even if the meeting had been arranged to give the impression of an efficient and organized transition, it didn’t quite manage to erase the memories of a long electoral campaign, resembling – on the Democratic side – the dismissal of the eight years of the Bush administration as a failure. Leaving the tour of the private apartments (33 rooms) on the first and second floors of the White House to their spouses, Bush and Obama isolated themselves for one hour and five minutes, without any counselor or secretaries to take notes.

In his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama described the White House tenant, who he had met three times already, as “the kind of guy who is good company as long as the topics of conversation are restricted to sports and kids.” The Republican and the Democrat didn’t have time for that, with the economic and financial crisis consuming all of their time. Barack Obama made a plea for a second economic “stimulus” intended for American citizens.

Measures could be submitted to Congress quickly, but George W. Bush still has the possibility to veto them. He declared that he could give his support to economic measures on the condition that Mr. Obama and the Democrat members of Congress renounce their opposition to the free trade agreement with Columbia, which he promised President Alvaro Uribe. The Democrats don’t seem willing to concede that.

There was another sign of rupture as John Podeste, chief of Barack Obama’s transition team, announced that the President-elect would cancel several presidential decrees upon assuming power on January 20th. He will change the public financing restrictions on stem cell research, modify prisoner interrogation techniques, push back the due date of new plans for oil and gas drilling off the American coast and will release the credit for international family planning, which were suspended by Bush on the very first day of his presidency back in January 2001.

Until then, the President-elect will remain discreet, so that he may prepare for his return “with good, solid and sound choices.” Though he had been invited, Mr. Obama will not attend the G20 summit devoted to rebuilding the international financial system on Saturday in Washington.