5 Great Progressive Moves by Obama That You Might Have Missed

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted February 20, 2009.

Obama has also commissioned an advisory council to review the program and chart a new course for relations between government and local nonprofit groups. Although the council is being led by the conservative Joshua Dubois (a friend of pastor Rick Warren), it also includes one openly gay member, Fred Davie, president of Public/Private Ventures, a foundation to help low-income communities.

The most-anticipated aspect of the review is the panel's decision on whether religious groups that discriminate on the basis of religious background or sexuality can receive federal funding. If, as expected, Obama ends up revising the Bush rules, evangelical groups that discriminate, like World Vision, will no longer be eligible for funding. Even before the council issues its report, the president has already told the director of the new office to consult the Department of Justice on constitutional and non-discrimination law.

A Reform-Minded Drug Czar

During the transition, progressives and drug-policy reform advocates were jolted by rumors that conservative Minnesota Republican Congressman Jim Ramstad was Obama's choice to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy. But Ramstad didn't get the post, and Obama's recently announced choice for "drug czar," Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, is a relief and an opportunity. True, he's a cop, not a public-health expert as many reform advocates would have liked, but he's a relatively enlightened cop. (Even if the NAACP did once call for his resignation after his handling of an abuse case.) Kerlikowske comes from a city that has been a pioneer on policies such as needle-exchange programs, lowering marijuana as a law-enforcement priority and innovating overdose-prevention strategies.

A confidante of Attorney General Eric Holder, Kerlikowske has received strong local endorsements and praise for his tolerance of local medical marijuana laws, despite their being at variance with federal law. "Oh God bless us," a medical-marijuana patient told the Seattle Times upon hearing of Kerlikowske's nomination. "What a blessing -- the karma gods are smiling on the whole country, man."

Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle attorney and medical-marijuana advocate, also praised the choice.

"Kerlikowske is clearly familiar with drug-policy reforms and has not been a forceful opponent," says Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance Network. "It's a potentially transformative moment."

Swift Action on Arms Control

By all accounts, Obama appears serious about meeting his campaign pledge to drastically reduce the world's largest nuclear stockpiles and initiate a new era of arms control.

Earlier this month, it came out that even before he was sworn in, Obama had sent Henry Kissinger to Moscow to explore a grand bargain that would slash Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals to 1,000 each. The administration has signaled that it intends to reduce spending on missile defense, reconsider missile defense in Europe and deny funding for the development of new nuclear weapons. For the first time in eight years, committed nonproliferation experts are being slotted in senior positions at the State Department's relevant agencies.

"[Obama] came into office with the most comprehensive, integrated, detailed nuclear policy of any candidate ever to assume the presidency," Joseph Cirincione, of the Ploughshares Fund, said last week at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "I have a great deal of optimism for our chances to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear policy [and] make the world a safer and better place."

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Alexander Zaitchik is a freelance journalist.

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