Pffffffff-bwahahahahahaha! Man, you gotta warn me before saying something so patently absurd like that! The man spoke in glittering generalities, and when he did reference “concrete ideas” such as socialist redistributionism, he back-pedalled. So yeah, “concrete ideas”. Is that what they teach you at the University of Chicago?

and pursue policies and a political tone that are vastly different than those of preceding administrations.

Oh, the tone will be different, alright: Heavy handed authoritarianism, unbridled socialism, and Orwellian power-gathering. Fortunately, I’m vested in the afterlife and not this worldly life. Good luck to you, pal.

Bill, help! I didn’t think I’d really win this thing!

There’s a dramatic difference between “change” and “hiring White House staffers who don’t know how the place works.” If anything, Obama’s staffing plan is fixing a major, Clintonian mistake – Clinton put off choosing his staffers, so that they had to struggle to get into the swing of things, after the transition. Obama’s being smart by handling the staffers now, so that everyone will be ready to get things done, when he takes over.

Really, the problem here is that so many people on the right plugged their ears and started shouting down anyone who tried to tell them that “change” was actually the by-word for concrete ideas. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to throw out everyone who’s ever worked in Washington. It means we’re going to put some one new in charge of the whole thing – Obama himself – and pursue policies and a political tone that are vastly different than those of preceding administrations.