The first half of this title is the top headline in today’s Barre/Montpelier Times Argus.

My wife, an ardent Obama supporter who actively and successfully lobbied friends to vote for Obama, tossed the paper down in disgust. “Where’s the change I voted for?” she asked the kitchen and me.

In my opinion the answer is simple: we are witnessing Obama’s definition of political change.

If all you ever heard during the ’08 presidential campaign was the flowers in Obama’s speeches … sure … you’re surprised and disappointed in what you’re seeing now. But if you listened to the words Obama was using, like me you’re recognizing he is following the path he promised.

For Obama change was and is about Republicans and Democrats coming together to create common solutions to our nation’s and world’s biggest problems. On the campaign trail he wasn’t results oriented instead focusing on the process to achieve the results and that is where he still is today.

Nothing illustrates this better than the inexorable dissipation of any political will to insist up the inclusion of the progressive compromise on single payer health care systems: a public run insurance program.

Simply put Obama is going to push through anything he can label as “reform” without regard to what the sausage tastes like in the end. It is more important for Obama to garner Republican support than it is for him to jump ugly on intransigent right-wing Democrats. (This is despite the fact that the House’s bill 2600 made sure that prices were to be fixed at a level insurance companies could thrive with … a point I made in a previous post.)

I remember when the Bybee pro-torture memo surfaced. It is a litany of ways the cheney/bush administration could avoid any application of anti-torture laws to them or the good Nazis who did the bidding or cheney/bush.

(Obviously the Bybee memo has served its purpose well as Obama has strenuously fought any attempt at holding the torturers or their enablers responsible for anything … ‘nother story ‘nother day.)

The primary way the Bybee memo performed its function was simply by redefining torture to mean an act that could never be reached! Pain and suffering was defined as being “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such a organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” (The Bybee memo got this definition from medical law describing when medical care is required … but never mind.)

Various methods the Bybee proposed as not being torture includes: “four detainees were severely beaten and forced to stand spread eagle up against the wall” (page 29); and being ‘forced to stand spread eagle while an interrogator kicked them “continuously on the inside of the legs.”‘ (ibid … oh, and you might want to take this definition and enter “common peroneal strike bagram airbase” in google … describes what happens when the cheney/bush torture process is applied to the outside instead of the inside of the legs).

And let us not forget the ever copyable Israelis and ‘”the forceful shaking of the suspect’s upper torso, back and forth, repeatedly, in a manner which causes the neck and head to dangle and vacillate rapidly.”‘ No, not torture either.

The end result of the Bybee memo (beyond giving Obama a chance to make excuses for torturers) was a complete redefinition of the word torture that still survives today. And like the Bybee memo has effectively redefined torture, at least for now, Obama has effectively redefined change.

For Obama change has nothing to do with results, but has everything to do with process … even when that process is the same old process that has been failing our nation. Obama has no issue with the same policies and proposals as those that came out of the cheney/bush administration; he just wants it to be “bi-partisan” as opposed to Republican party rule.

So while you stand there with mouth agape wondering “What the fuck?”, well, don’t be surprised … it’s just Obama’s version of change … which really is no change … but that’s why it looks and feels like change really isn’t happening.

PS. Did you look up that “common peroneal strike bagram airbase” in google? If you did you’ll note that even life threatening pain in the end wasn’t considered torture by our nation’s military courts.