<<What policy of the previous President do you expect to see reversed?>>
That's a very tough question. First of all, I think Obama will have to pick his battles. He can't realistically expect to reverse all the mistakes of the Bush administration and he's too smart to try. I don't happen to think, given the popular vote split, that he has a particularly lavish mandate here.
One policy that will change from the outset is "war as the first resort," "pre-emptive war," or any other way that the Bush administration war policies can be described. This is something nobody will "see reversed" because it's a negative - - nobody will "see" the wars that Obama doesn't start. But it's very important (a) that there IS a President in office who people can trust not to start unprovoked wars of aggression and (b) that the rest of the world understands this. It will immediately begin to reverse the tide of international anger and rage against the U.S. that under Bush has reached record proportions.
One reversal I would hope to see immediately would be a total reversal of the torture policies of the Bush administration. An unambiguous, blanket prohibition of all forms of torture, including cruel and unusual punishments, with stiff penalties for abusers, if put into effect immediately, would go a long way towards re-establishing respect for America and its armed forces in the world. You asked what I "expected" to see - - well, on torture, "expecting" to see a reversal is kind of strong language, I would say rather that it's something that I might see, and would hope to see. NOT seeing it would be an early signal to me that Obama, like Bill Clinton, may not live up to the promise that he showed as a candidate.
The existing wars are a much tougher nut to crack. Once begun, they can't be called off, unless the new President has a degree of boldness and courage that, frankly, I just don't think he has.
I expect to see the commitments to Iraq reduced, but I don't know how he's gonna do it. The problem is that appearances have to be maintained but costs cannot be sustained. Logically there are only a few ways to do it, but each is fraught with political minefields for Obama and I just don't know if he's going to be able to reverse this mistake or take the line of least resistance by letting the thing continue to fester through and beyond his own administration until it resolves itself.
A very predictable and welcome reversal is in the area of Supreme Court appointments. That's a no-brainer, and provided only that there are vacancies to be filled, Obama can be counted on to fill them with liberal, progressive judges rather than with Scalia or Alito clones. If he won't be given the pleasure of filling conservative seats, at least he can replace liberal judges with very young, long-lasting varieties.
I expect also to see some serious tax reform. I'm not sure what form it will take in detail, but we all know the era of tax breaks for the rich is over. Tax reform is complex and exquisitely detailed and I wouldn't presume to guess the mechanism, apart from what Obama's already revealed to Joe the Plumber, but in general, I'd expect a much heavier bite on the rich and possibly some kind of break for the little guy.
Gay rights? No changes, but to be fair, I don't believe that Bush made any changes in the situation that he inherited from Clinton. Don't ask don't tell was a Clinton compromise to paint over one of his broken promises, but at least Bush never - - as far as I know - - did anything to worsen the situation that requires reversal.
Stem cell research - - changes in funding policies for sure, but I am not really sure if there will be much demand for funding in human embryo stem cell research.
Foreign aid restrictions on population control efforts that were religiously motivated, I think that's all gone. There won't be any more fundamentalist influence on or interference with any kind of domestic or foreign federally financed programs that deal in any way with human sexuality.
The general tilt of the Bush administration towards laissez-faire capitalism is going to shift towards more regulation, but the system was never pure laissez-faire, so we're not really talking reversal so much as course alteration.
In summary, the worst mistake by far - - and it's really not a mistake but a crime - - of the Bush administration was the war in Iraq. This could be totally reversed in under six months if Obama had the balls or even the mandate, but he has neither, and so the way that he deals with it won't be so much geared to stopping it in its tracks but more towards maintaining appearances and covering his own ass. The big change will be invisible - - the wars he DOESN'T start.
