It seems that, on the one hand, some conservatives are relieved that on matters of the Bush tax policies, the reaction to the financial meltdown, and foreign policy, including two wars, Obama has suddenly triangulated and, in sober and judicious fashion, become a mixture of a Clinton and GWB third term.

But, on the other hand, while there is relief that Chomsky will not head State, and Bill Ayers not be Secretary of Defense, there is something troubling about announcing a candidacy in 2007 on a rather hard left premise of radical hope and change, running during 2008 on renouncing many earlier H & C positions (FISA, NAFTA, campaign financing, guns, abortion, taxes, capital punishment, drilling, nuclear, coal, missile defense, Iraq, the surge, Iran, etc.) to ensure election, and then as President-elect re-hiring many of the most emblematic status quo fixtures of the last 16 years.

As I interpret reaction to all that, there seems to be a assumption that we are getting Clinton III or Bush Lite, but with a hip soothing veneer that will bring obvious dividends in binding up wounds here and abroad.

Or in other words, first, the noble end of getting elected justified the disingenuous means of flipping positions, and, second, that noble end in turn was strengthened by the pragmatic means of getting Democratic centrists back in power that will win over independents, soothe conservative critics, and pretty much ignore the loud base, or buy them off with lower-level social and cultural bumper-sticker appointments.

Are we to be happy then that the elected Obama is proving to be a realist and pragmatist with some fine appointments rather than the ideologue outsider who savaged Hillary or demonized Bush and caricatured McCain, or rather shocked that the apparent consistency is only the desire to find political advantage? Who knows? — I surely don’t.

Still, it is hard to reconcile Obama’s status quo appointments with his fiery campaign anti-status quo rhetoric (e.g., “I also know that real change has never been easy, and it won’t be easy this time either. The status quo in Washington will fight harder than they ever have to divide us and distract us with ads and attacks from now until November.”) — and once one goes down the slope of expediency trumping all else, the way gets slippery fast.