Besides “parties,” I mean. I have had enough inauguration for today, so here are two big things to keep an eye on.
1. Guantanamo. This is a right mess. Obama has telegraphed a desire to shut the camps down soon, but that’s not actually the hard part. The prisoners will have to be tried somewhere or sent somewhere.
The EU is divided on whether to accept people who are either terrorists or who have been wrongly imprisoned for the past several years, and seeing as western Europe has borne much of the international terrorism in the years since 9/11, it makes sense.
Dianne Feinstein’s proposed bill seems to make sense. Glenn Greenwald is hesitatingly optimistic after reading the tea leaves of Obama’s legal appointments. Dahlia Lithwick and Phillipe Sands have a good rundown on the importance of Susan Crawford’s disclosures to Bob Woodward.
2. Economic stimulus. People have been saying that Obama might not be promising enough, and they might be right. Robert Reich thinks that’s okay–better to get Congress to agree on a too-small package, and therefore share responsibility and a willingness to fix initial mistakes, than to ram through a bigger one and make everyone mad. Mark Thoma thinks we shouldn’t be so sure about it being possible to just go back and throw more money at the problem.
3 (kind of). War crimes investigations. Given the appeal of the sweet sweet song of civility (warning, misleading title by Greenwald) I expect to be let down hard on this–no evidence, mind you, just my guess. I wouldn’t be alone.