David Seaton of TPM asks if Obama is the American Gorbachev:

What can we expect from an Obama presidency? If he gets a huge mandate and a Democratic Senate and Congress, there are two possibilities that I can see, either he doesn’t try to really change anything… a lot of disappointed kids and a lot of wasted time. Second possibility, he does try to change things, and it all falls apart….

The secret of much of what is happening today is that America was almost as badly damaged by the cold war as the Soviet Union. Like the Soviet Union, while others were learning to build good cars and TVs, airports and roads, Americans only built ‘intelligent’ munitions. People are waking up to reality and in true American fashion, they are reaching for the tranquilizer… the man with a plan, the change they can believe in… Not that dumb? We are talking about the same people who reelected George W. Bush, now with buyer’s remorse… Wheeee! The USA is just waiting for an amateur to tinker with it.

If you buy the argument, either Obama ends the war and does nothing as far as legislation goes (much better than McCain’s endless war and energetic domestic policy on climate change and free speech restrictions), or he tries to implement major, system-wide reforms and it all collapses. Gorbachev tried to reform a system that couldn’t be reformed, and it collapsed. What’s so different about what Obama’s selling?