During the campaign leading up to the election that thrust Barack Obama into the White House, there was a lot of rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum.
Lots of promises about future policy were made from both candidates.
We need not concern ourselves with the promises made by John McCain because he failed in his last bid for the big house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Those made by then candidate Obama bear some looking at and comparing with the actions he has undertook since taking the oath of office.
As I have written earlier, Barack Obama began making the office of the President his before he was actually sworn in.
The advance teams of his administration were fanned out all across Washington, D.
C.
in the days leading up to the inauguration and they were not bashful in making their presence known and felt, mostly in the economic struggle but also in wanting to reverse some of the more controversial policy positions of the administration of George W.
Bush.
During the campaign, Barack Obama relied heavily upon his opposition to the war in Iraq, to the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, and the secrecy that had surrounded the Bush administration.
He was very forthcoming about his desire to withdraw our troops from Iraq as quickly as possible and he promise to close Guantanamo Bay within a year of taking office.
He also promised that his administration would be open and transparent with their actions and policies, that the people of the United States would know what was going on in their federal government.
Shortly after taking office, Obama began to take steps to keep some of those promises.
On January 22, he issued an executive order that Guantanamo Bay be closed within a year and that the military trials being held there be stopped.
On February 27, he announced a timetable to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010.
On April 17, the President released four legal memos that approved of the harsh interrogation techniques that were used on three detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
There were other decisions made as well, mainly concerning economic and domestic issues, but these three issues are the ones I want to focus on.
His domestic agenda seems to be fully engaged, but I believe his foreign policy is undergoing some changes required by practicality.
The New York Times published an article in their May 16th edition and while I do not necessarily agree with everything they publish, this article is a good read.
It lays out in no uncertain terms why President Obama is taking slightly different positions on certain issues than did candidate Obama and I believe it is spot on with it's analysis.

Mr.
Obama's opening gambits as president were bold declarations of new directions, from announcing the closing of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to sweeping restrictions on interrogation techniques.
He advertised both as a return to traditional American values, after the diversions taken by George W.
Bush to the detriment of America's image abroad and of itself.
  But as he showed this week in the way he dealt with those two hard cases, Mr.
Obama has begun to scale back.
Faced with the choice of signaling an unambiguous break with the policies of the Bush era, or maintaining some continuity with its practices, the president has begun to come down on the side of taking fewer risks with security, even though he is clearly angering the liberal elements of his political base.

This week has shown some of the changes President Obama's policies have began to undergo.
On May 14th, he refused to release further photos that detailed some of the abuse some detainees were subjected to.
His logic was simple and he has his military leaders and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to thank for it.
There were afraid the photos would be used as a tool to incite more attacks on American troops and other interests we have around the world.
I suppose we could say cooler wiser heads prevailed.
On May 15th, it was announced the military trials that were held at Guantanamo Bay were being reformed and restarted, under direct orders from the President.
Clearly there will be some differences in these trials and the ones held under the direction of the Bush administration, but it is worthy to note that this is something President Obama did not want to do.
However, practicality again raised it's ugly head and he has realized that something had to be done with the detainees still being held at Guantanamo Bay.
A process had to be in place to work toward the conviction or release of those prisoners.
President Obama has also slowed his timetable for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, which is another example of his deferring to his military leaders.
Admittedly, the liberal supporters of President Obama have been up in the air about these decisions.
These were promises he made, after all and how dare he not keep them.
On the conservative side of the political spectrum, we are calling the President names, mostly flip-flopper, and declaring how we knew he couldn't be trusted all along.
While it is true that I do not trust our President in his handling of our country, I must say it has nothing to do with the decision reversals we have seen this week.
Let's face the truth, both liberal, conservative, or however we are politically aligned.
President Obama is running into the same thing that every other new President has run into, albeit on different issues.
He has discovered that making campaign promises is a very easy thing to do, but it is another thing entirely to keep them all.
If nothing else, Obama is a very pragmatic man and he is beginning to see how the reality of the problems our country is facing, both domestic and foreign, dictates at least some of his actions and decisions.
Even if a Republican or possibly a third-party candidate had won the election in November, they would have ran into the same wall of practicality and realized that there are some promises that just can't be kept, no matter how much you may want to do so.
Sometimes, even the will of the President must bow to the will of reality.