I just read a comment on another web site that was written by a Brit who wrote that Obama reminded him of Tony Blair.  When Tony Blair was elected as leader of the New Labour party, he talked of a new politics of hope that would end the years of political bickering and game playing.  He wrote of finding common ground and compromise in place of oneupsmanship.  In short, his words sounded much like those of Obama in this campaign.  We all know where the Tony Blair story ends: New Labour has been the party of corporate capitalism and colonialist wars.  New Labour has gutted civil protections in Britain in ways that the Tories could not have accomplished, often in a way that Bush/Cheney can only envy. 
I was looking for a trope to capture my general uneasiness with Obama, and this is it.  Of course, even after New Labour became extremely unpopular, they won the last election, because their voters feared the alternative of the Tories taking power.  And yet, so many of us in the U.S. are continuing to think that we will hold our noses and vote for Obama, even after he has begun clearly to reveal his true self since winning the nomination.  FISA is only the beginning, I'm afraid of a Tony Blair regime in the U.S. under the name of Obama.  Can one really say that Britain or the world are better off today because New Labour defeated John Major?  Not really.  Of course, no reasonable person could vote either for the Tories in the UK or for McCain in the US.  But New Labour hasn't been better by much, if at all.  What really do we have to think that Obama won't be more of the same.  Nothing new about New Labour.  Not much change in Change We Can Believe In.