It was thought by many that a President Obama would put a stop to the madness, put an end to the Bush administration's nightmarish approach to national security. But Mr. Obama has shown no inclination to bring even the worst offenders of the Bush years to account, and seems perfectly willing to move ahead in lockstep with the excessive secrecy and some of the most egregious activities of the Bush era.

The new president's excessively cautious approach to the national security and civil liberties outrages of the Bush administration are unacceptable, and the organizations and individuals committed to fairness, justice and the rule of law -- the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others -- should intensify their efforts to get the new administration to do the right thing.

It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

And then that word grew louder and louder
'Til it was a battle cry
I'll come back
When you call me
No need to say goodbye

Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before
All you can do is try to know who your friends are
As you head off to the war

Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light
You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye ...

No tearjerkers, nothing depressing, just good romantic comedy or feelgood drama but not sad -- and  current, since I've seen a goodly number of the old ones.

Any suggestions?

I thought about getting Marley and Me tonight -- gosh the labbie on the cover is cute -- but figured I'd be constantly screaming at the TV -- "It's not the dog, it's YOU! like I do every time I watch Dog Whisperer."

Congressional Democrats are largely ignoring President Obama's $19.8 billion in budget cuts.

The president proposed axing dozens of programs that he said were inefficient or ineffective, but members of the House Appropriations Committee are including the money for them.

They are looking to cut elsewhere -- and are targeting even some of Obama's priorities.

Democrats on the panel are, for example, leaving out $60 million required to close the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba -- one of Obama's campaign promises.

Disagreements between lawmakers and the White House amount to only a fraction of the $3.6 trillion budget's $1 trillion in discretionary spending. Democrats say they share Obama's larger goal of reducing spending. But they do not agree over which parts of the budget are bloated.

Spending bills marked up by the House have found funds for prisons for illegal immigrants, grants for public telecom facilities, and homeland security programs sending money back to local officials -- all of which had been chopped by the White House.

Obama had called for $19.8 billion of cuts in discretionary spending next year, saying the reductions are "setting the right priorities with our spending."

But in the five spending bills that have so far been reported out of the House Appropriations Committee, lawmakers have ignored at least $655 million of the president's proposed cuts.

Since taking office, Obama has argued that reclaiming America's moral authority by ending torture and closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay provides essential diplomatic leverage to influence events in such strategic parts of the world as the Middle East and Central Asia. The speech he delivered to the Islamic world in Cairo eights days before the June 12 Iranian election sought to do that by providing what the president saw as an unvarnished accounting of U.S. policy in Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We're trying to promote a foreign policy that advances our interests, not that makes us feel good about ourselves," said a senior administration official who, like others, declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

Obama's approach to Iran, including his assertion that the unrest there represents a debate among Iranians unrelated to the United States, is an acknowledgment that a U.S. president's words have a limited ability to alter foreign events in real time and could do more harm than good. But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic's Islamic authority in its 30-year history.

One senior administration official with experience in the Middle East said, "There clearly is in the region a sense of new possibilities," adding that "I was struck in the aftermath of the president's speech that there was a connection. It was very sweeping in terms of its reach."

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