The first thing we do is start counting the lawyers. Despite the criticism of Hillary, she's a first rate legal scholar. Larry Johnson has much to say on this subject. I'll quote a few lines from his most recent post.

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/

When Barack Obama’s team takes over on 20 January they are going to be dealing with a serious case of legal shock. What do I mean? The Bush Administration has been the most anti-lawyer administration in the history of the United States. Look at the folks who held the top slots, particularly in the first term, who were not lawyers and had no formal legal training:

George Bush
Dick Cheney
George Tenet
Colin Powell
Don Rumsfeld
Paul Wolfowitz
Condi Rice

So what? The Bush Administration has pursued a variety of policies that cause most legal scholars to recoil in horror. There are some highly classified, compartmented programs instituted by the Bush Administration that, when examined by lawyers with more mainstream sensibilities, will likely be terminated. It is no surprise that an Administration so openly hostile to the law would adopt policies and engage in practices that have skirted the law and, in some cases, broken the law. It is quite clear that President Bush and Vice President Cheney treated international law and international treaties as some sort of meaningless bureaucratic burden. And they surrounded themselves with lawyers who enabled their behavior with farfetched, extreme interpretations of what was and was not legal.
.................

Conservatives traditionally rail against liberals for supporting “judicial” activism. Ironically, it is conservative lawyers in the Bush Administration who have themselves engaged in a vile form of judicial activism. They have encourage and justified policies and practices that, once fully exposed to the light of day, will be a permanent stain on the honor and integrity of this country. This is not the first time that politicians have ignored the Constitution and engaged in illegal activities. Democratic icon Earl Warren helped imprison in concentration camps American citizens of Japanese heritage.

I am hoping that Barack Obama and his team will recoil in horror at the attack on international and constitutional law carried out by the Bush team as they finally get a look at the “books.” Issues such as FISA, habeus corpus, and Guantanamo are the tip of a very large and dirty legal iceberg. Don’t be surprised when the media turns on Obama and circulates the story that he is jeopardizing our nation’s security by insisting that we abide by the rule of law. I frankly do not know if Obama has the courage to take this issue on. What do you think?

I think Obama is going to need all the support he can muster to insist that the rule of law be upheld and that no matter what the public may say, we are a nation of laws and not of monsters. It's going to be up to us to shower him with as much support as possible if any of his appointees get out of line, and also to insist that the atrocious permanent stains that Larry Johnson mentions be permanently deleted and repudiated forthrightly and vocally.

On top of these issues, Bush has left the nation in the most precarious financial state since the great depression, and even now we don't know if it's worse than that. Joyful's comment in the previous post about those who gleefully chainsawed (literally - see her link) through regulations that would have prevented the financial catastrophe that has befallen us are equally guilty of horrific abuses that must and will be curbed if we are to survive as a nation. Hopefully multimillion dollar salaries for executives will come to an end and we will see an end to the huge palaces that have been used as living quarters for those who do business with the government. Perhaps one day those will be looked upon with horror and astonishment at the gross excesses of the Bush years. I for one would like to see the palace of Versailles clone (and similar ones in the same neighborhood) of a house in the DC suburbs that Thomas Frank took pictures of when promoting his new book could be treated in the same manner that Boris Pasternak detailed in his most famous book. (spare us the rest of the Red Revolution though)

Yes, it's easy to get into a cycle of depression, but Barack Obama is in some ways an unknown quantity. I hope that the liberal blogs can support his policies. If the rhetoric he enunciated in his campaign comes even partly to pass, it will be a great improvement. However, we must come to grips with the past to insure that we don't repeat it and I hope that this task is on the agenda for everyone in the administration. Multitasking is something Democrats can do if we set our minds to it. We simply cannot allow the past to set the course for our future and many of the appointees may need to correct their own vision of what Washington was like eight years ago. Nothing is the same and cleaning up the mess, making the public aware of what horrific abuses were conducted in our names, and fashioning a new system based on many of the principles that were proven to work when enacted into law during FDR's term of governance are going to be needed. Everyone is going to be busy as possible. Hopefully the Republicans won't start out shouting about wacked out theories like they did during the Clinton years as serious work has to be done to get this nation on track again, and it's going to take years of effort. Our pompous little Nero and his gang of thieves have seen to that. But a trip to the Netherlands would certainly put an end to such idiocy.

I could go on and on but I guess I've said enough for one day.

I am extremely hopeful, but that still does not mean that many unpleasant tasks remain yet to be accomplished.

Centrist, competence, DLC,.... After the last miserable 8 years, I'm thrilled to have those people in our government comes January. I wish to see a more progressive cabinet, but it is fully expected by anybody who was immune to campaign rhetoric and saw that Obama and Clinton's policies are almost identical.

And about the Clinton's failure in health care, at least she tried, nobody else did, does she get any credit for trying?

My take would be that if you think Hillary sincerely tried to generate a reasonable health-care solution as First Lady and was frustrated by an implacable system, then you'd give her a lot of credit for that effort.

If on the other hand you saw that episode as a Goldwater Girl trying to sell us the health-care equivalent of NAFTA — what works for the corporations and screw the people — then you're not likely to give her any credit for the time spent.

It could be worse. It could also be better.

I think you're right when you say "if constituents lead in the right direction." I think Obama does want to steer us in the right (meaning left) direction, but he's going to be pressured by a lot of powerful interests not to, and his natural instinct seems to be towards reconciliation and compromise. It will be up to us, the constituents, to put an equal, counterbalancing pressure on him. I think he's genuinely sympathetic to it. But we'll have to make him do it. It sounds cheesy, but in a way it really is up to us. We can't let him slide.

eight years of what we called incompetence, but was in fact exquisite technique in pursuit of a goal opposite to ours

Nicely put. As damning as the state of this country is when attributed to failure, how much more damning is it when attributed to success? Bush wasn't lying when he stood in front of that banner. The mission really was accomplished.