HANSON

Posted at 10:18 a.m. ET

Victor Davis Hanson gives his usual sharp analysis, focused this time on the beginnings of the Obama administration.  From The Washington Times:

For nearly three months since the election, we have been warned by President Obama, his staff and the media not to burden him with unreal expectations that no mere mortal could meet.

But why then consciously borrow from Abraham Lincoln's speeches? And why re-create Lincoln's historic train ride to his Inauguration - especially by flying back from Washington to Illinois to then return to D.C. by slow-moving railcar? Lincoln took the train because it was the only feasible way to get to Washington in 1861, not to copy the grand arrival of some earlier American savior.

Wonderfully stated.

And there's something else:

It would be difficult to find a single major policy position that he hasn't backtracked somewhat on, especially on matters of foreign policy and the war against terror. Yet throughout the campaign, Mr. Obama and the media argued that the manner in which Mr. Bush waged the war against terror was harmful to the republic. So, were Mr. Bush's polices wrong then, but suddenly right now?

See our second item today, posted at 8:09 a.m.

Mr. Obama defeated Hillary Clinton by running as a Washington outsider who promised new hope and radical change - and anything other than more Bush or Clinton.

Then he imported much of the old Clinton team for governance - Rahm Emanuel, Leon Panetta, John Podesta, Larry Summers, Hillary herself and a score of others - to put a far more articulate and hip veneer on George Bush's current foreign policy.

We're getting that impression, aren't we?

What is going on here? Apparently, Mr. Obama accepts that the country is both still center-right and yet eager for a nontraditional national spokesman - glib, young, cool and able to charm a hostile world that is often hypocritical toward and envious of America...

...But Mr. Obama's hard-left base had promoted Mr. Obama the liberal activist for different reasons...

...So to satisfy both left and center constituencies, Mr. Obama seems to stick with the status quo on major issues while offering symbolic gestures and low-profile appointments to radical environmentalists, gay and minority activists, open-borders reformers and labor unionists.

But will this all work?  With the Iranians?  With Putin?  The Hamas choir? 

This triangulation may or may not work at home. Yet abroad it is a different story, where one cannot vote present or charm tough guys and thugs who do not always appreciate flexibility - and may interpret it as weakness to be exploited...

...The much-maligned George Bush handled all these characters with often unambiguous, if inelegant, talk, and a no-nonsense toughness. If Mr. Obama, in contrast, feels he can offer them vague hope-and-change great-expectations rhetoric, and make himself agreeable to the world abroad in the manner he did so to us at home - well, then, lots of luck!

Look, as we've said before, we want the president to succeed, especially in foreign- and defense policy.  But Hanson makes a good point.  Mr. Obama is juggling a lot of balls in the air.  He can't let any of them drop.  He's much more articulate than Bush, but what is lacking thus far is clearly defined policy.

January 25, 2009.