Change - Month 1

President Obama addresses Congress tonight, a month after taking the oath of office. Instead of clearing brush at a fake ranch, he's actually been working for his employers - us. The Sierra Club is pleased:

There's never been a month -- not at least since the heady days of the early 1970s -- when environmental policy has moved so dramatically towards a sustainable future. The challenge now is to keep up the pace.

And even though the republicans have remembered their misplaced-for-eight-years dedication to fiscal discipline (i.e. trying to block government spending on infrastructure and state aid), it's the President who looks to be tackling the sacredest of D.C. sacred cows, weapons spending:

Unlike most of his predecessors selected to be under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, Carter has no professional ties to America's arms makers or manufacturing industry, nor has he spent his career in government procurement. Instead, from his perch at Harvard's Kennedy School, Carter has been criticizing the Pentagon for buying too many armaments it doesn't need, decrying what he calls a lack of discipline and "failure to take account of cost growth in weapons systems and defense services."

Wow, you mean that there's something in the federal budget that can be cut other than social security benefits?

Add that to SCHIP, fair pay protections for women, following through on promises to cut middle class taxes while simultaneously funding health care reform and renewable energy (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and the executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and it's been an incredible month.

There are still things to be concerned about, such as the DOJ tending to support Bush administration positions on "state secrets" and the open question of Bagram prison in Afghanistan. We need to insist on accountability on these issues and others, but let's not forget where we were just last month (and for the last eight years). If President Obama keeps up this pace, the next eight years might be as good for America and the world as the last eight were bad.