I'll admit that I did fall for the Obama is the Messiah storyline a little bit. It felt romantic (in the ideal sense, not the love sense) to have this good looking, intelligent, thoughtful man of principle who was going to sweep away all the bad caused by Bush and the Conservatives for the last eight years. I have been a Democrat literally since I was five years old, and I have been a Liberal since I was 15. I'm 35 now, but in all that time I had never fallen in love with a candidate the way I did with Obama. I desperately wanted, and perhaps needed, him to be a man of strong convictions who would defeat brainless Conservatism at every turn.

Unfortunately, in the six months he has been in office I have seen him capitulate too many times to the Conservative line of thinking in the guise of "bipartisanship". I don't WANT bipartisanship if it means capitulation. I want bipartisanship if it means that Obama was successful in convincing some Conservatives that they were HORRIBLY wrong and need to allow Liberals to push our agendas forward. If an idea is a good idea, you should be able to convince a logical person to see your side and hopefully sway them. The fact that this isn't what goes on in Washington seems indicative of a host of problems with our government (lack of intellect of elected officials, corruption, blind competitiveness of the two political sides).

And, I don't expect Obama to fix everything in six months. But what I do expect is that he will, on a consistent basis, show that he is living up to the standards that he convinced us that he believed in, such as transparency in government. He has regularly sided with those who want to continue to keep the truth hidden from the population, such as the torture photos, and not being interested in pursuing the criminal acts of Bush and Cheney.

We NEED a fully transparent government if we are to ever be able to fully trust it, and its claim that it has our best interests in mind. Part of the reason people are skeptical of things like the stimulus plan and healthcare reform is because we don't have clear evidence that the government is trying to do what is best for the people on the street. Transparency and a  willingness to go after Bush and Cheney to show that NO ONE is above the law would go a long way to gaining the people's trust.