Can you remember a time when there was this much hullaballoo over a transfer of power in the White House?  I sure can’t.

Sure, this is an historic moment.  That can’t be lost on anyone.  But if I see one more commemorative plate, coin, DVD or other whozit advertised on television for the low, low price of $49.99 paid in three installments so that I may “own a piece of history,”  I may vomit.  I get how important this is, but how exactly is a painted porcelain plate a piece of history? 

Aside from all the painted tchotchkes, there’s more in the way of needless fuss and bother:  already you have pundits and interest groups, on both sides of the aisle, wringing their hands over the appointments of the new administration.  There’s a rush on to proclaim the validity of Obama’s execution on his mandate for “change.”  Every appointment, every leak of potential policy, every breath and whisper becomes grist for the mill, fodder to fuel the jump to a conclusion.  And there’s over a month to go before Obama even takes the Oath of Office.  At this rate, we’ll be doing the post mortem of the Obama Presidency sometime around the date of the first State of the Union address. 

The bleatings you hear amidst the noise go something like this:  “Obama isn’t really about ‘change,’ all his appointees are old Clinton people.”  Then there’s this one: “Obama is really a center-right politician, just like every other politician, so he’s not really about ‘change’.”  And then there is “He’s not even in office and already he’s backing off of the agenda of ‘change’ that won him the White House.”

Let’s all take a big, deep breath, people.

First of all, at the moment nearly everything except the appointments themselves has an element of the hypothetical to it, because the inexorable fact is that Obama is not the President yet. He can talk about what he’s gonna do, what he thinks might work, what he doesn’t want, and none of it has the force of law.  Right now he is a guy who’s won an election, the successor who is waiting in the wings. 

Sure, everyone is looking to him to provide direction, which is more a statement on the dearth of such leadership from the current President than it is about anything else.  The fact of the matter is that Obama’s strength as a leader has been his remarkable ability to think things all the way through, to not jump out of the gate thinking he knows everything and has all the answers.  The tide of the election turned when, in response to the economic crisis, he demonstrated himself to have that “iceman” persona – the ability to wait and see how things are going before inserting himself into a problem. 

Yet now, it seems, he is to be criticized for raising potentially unpopular policy ideas in the discussion leading up to his first days in office.  Issues like not rolling back the tax cuts, keeping Gates on as Secretary of Defense, and the fate of Guantanamo Bay are being discussed right now, but nothing yet amounts to a decision, because Obama is not yet the “decider.”  There’s no reason yet to believe that any of this consists of taking options off the table or deeming these matters a fait accompli.  It’s certainly fine to voice opinion on whether you agree or not with any of the ideas currently being floated, but it’s a little premature to proclaim a wholesale of betrayal when the guy hasn’t actually done anything.

The biggest problem at work here is not Obama, it is the nature of running on a platform of “change.”  The last eight years have been such a travesty, with so many things to be infuriated about, so many things done that require undoing, that nearly every person has a different idea of what it means to “change.”  What do we change first?  What’s the most important thing to change?  What do we change to?  Ask the voters who voted for Barack Obama what change they would like to see in America, and every single one will have a different list of priorities, in a different order of importance.  As a practical matter, it is truly impossible for Obama to fulfill every voter’s mental picture of what “change” looks like.

But it’s even worse than that, because the thing is, this election was about our deepest held values as a nation. It has aroused our passion for our country in a way that hasn’t really been felt in decades.  This mattered to us.  And as is always the case when things matter, it isn’t easy to be objective or charitable.  Looking through the lens of our passion for what we think change ought to be, Obama’s failure to perfectly mirror to every individual their personal vision for change seems all the more disappointing.  Even though, when we look at it rationally, we have to acknowledge that such a thing is impossible.

What did Obama mean when he said he would bring “change?”  That’s really the rational question to be addressed.  And it begs a few others….because change is not something that happens in a vacuum.  Change is by its very nature a comparative act.  In order to effect a change, you must reference the thing from which you are changing, in order that you may offer a substantive difference.  Change is also a relative act, one that can happen in small and big ways.  The fact that changes may be small does not obviate the fact that they are, indeed, changes.

Let’s look at the appointments, for instance.  The major criticism of Obama’s appointments has been that they are largely drawn from the most recent Democratic administration of Bill Clinton.  And indeed, a good number of the positions in the new Administration are being staffed with Clinton era veterans – Rahm Emmanuel, Bill Richardson, even Hillary Clinton herself will be doing their part in shaping the Obama Presidency.  How, goes the critique, does installing Clinton Cabinet 2.0 constitute “change?”  There are two flaws in the logic here.  The first is the assumption that someone who has served in the Clinton administration is incapable of executing anything but a Clinton-style policy agenda, something that can by no means be assumed. 

The second is the notion that installing a competent, policy-oriented team (one of the hallmarks of the Clinton administration) is not a change simply because it has been seen before.  But as compared to the current Administration, which has been noted for its hyper-politicized nature, to the point where competency and baseline policy comprehension was often an afterthought, it is indeed very much a change.

Then there is the fact that change also has a time component to it.  There is change, and then there is sudden change.  There are those in the chattering class who are all but foaming at the mouth over the decision to keep Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense.  Yet it has been made clear that the theory behind the appointment was that it would not last much longer than a year, that Gates was more a placeholder, a bid for continuity, as opposed to an adoption of Bush defense policies.  The big question with respect to change is this:  is Obama’s responsibility to deliver on the mandate for change a requirement that everything immediately reflect difference, or merely the need to, at the end of his term, be able to demonstrate that he has delivered the country to a place that is markedly different from where it was headed four years ago?  Both would be “change” -- the only difference is the level of radicalism.

And in the end, that is the whole issue that Obama has with the politics of “change.”  When one really looks at how Obama ran for President, when one really considers the coalition he built to attain the White House, it is not a blueprint for the kind of radical change that many are hungry for, particularly on the progressive end of the spectrum.  Obama’s bid for “change” was more measured, more centrist than that.  Now that change is coming, it is natural that those with the strongest appetite for it are the most disappointed by the fact that Obama-style change will not be as fast, or as wholesale as they hope.  Perhaps at that point, remembering the reference point becomes more helpful:  as compared to what?