If I am not greatly mistaken, the Americans will come to rue the day they elected this rooky into office. Not yet in office, he is being audacious – very audacious! Were I to be an American, I should be very, very worried. Even as a non-American, I am. This is a man with little experience behaving as though he were the most experienced man on earth. One can only be troubled – very troubed. Remember this: Only fools rush in where angels fear to tread. - ©Mark
BBC: US President-elect Barack Obama will seek to reverse Bush administration policies when he enters office on 20 January, his transition chief said.
John Podesta said executive orders by President George W Bush on issues such as stem cell research and oil drilling were at odds with Mr Obama's views.
He said they could be easily repealed as no Congressional action was needed.
On Monday Mr Obama and Mr Bush will hold their first meeting since the Democrat's election victory.
Mr Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters - Malia, 10, and Sasha, seven - will be given a tour of their new home at the White House.
Afterwards the president-elect and Mr Bush are expected to hold what Mr Obama has described as "substantive talks".
'Deliberate haste'
"I'm not going to anticipate problems. I'm going to go in there with a spirit of bipartisanship," Mr Obama said on Friday, at his first news conference as president-elect.
The meeting has been arranged with unusual haste - analysts say this is in part because the US is at war, and also the transition is taking place in the midst of an economic crisis.
Mr Obama has said that dealing with the economy is his top priority, and that he will move with "deliberate haste" to choose his cabinet.
Speaking on Fox News, Mr Podesta said Mr Obama's team was working hard to "build up that core economic team".
Mr Podesta said the incoming administration was also scrutinising many of the executive orders signed by President Bush "on stem cell research, on a number of areas".
"You see the Bush administration even today moving aggressively to do things I think are not in the interest of the country." Obama 'to Use Executive Orders' >>> | November 9, 2008
MAIL Online: Showdown in the White House: Obama to Clash with Bush over Stem Cell Research as He Seeks to Wipe Out President's Legacy
Barack Obama is heading for a confrontation with President Bush over stem cell research.
The president-elect is today making his first trip to the White House since his election victory.
And aides are predicting a strained meeting between the two men as Mr Obama sets out his transition plan to wipe out some of Mr Bush’s most personal initiatives.
Stem cell research tops a list of around 200 changes being planned by Mr Obama that mark a swift unravelling of the unpopular Republican president’s eight-year legacy.
The president-elect has made overturning Mr Bush’s controversial limit on government spending for embryonic stem cell research a priority for his fledgling administration.
Because the measures were not acts of Congress but executive orders made by the president, they can just as easily be changed by a directive from his successor.
Among other Bush policies that could be quickly reversed are a block on regulating carbon dioxide fumes from cars and a ban on international family planning groups receiving US aid from counselling women about the availability of abortion.
A move to free up government cash for stem cell research will delight scientists who complained the Bush regime stymied promising avenues for defeating a wide range of diseases, such as Parkinson’s.
But it will infuriate Christian conservatives who are morally opposed to the use of cells from days-old human embryos.
As Michelle Obama gets a tour of her new home, Mr Obama, 47, is also expected to urge Mr Bush, who remains in office until the new president’s inauguration on January 20, to bail out cash-strapped General Motors, the American car giant that owns Vauxhall plants in Luton and Cheshire.
GM says it’s on the brink of collapse and will run out of money in three months if it doesn’t get any aid from the US government.
Mr Obama is expected to argue that if Mr Bush, 62, refuses to help, then he will act as soon as he takes over. >>> David Gardner | November 10, 2008
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