During the dark days of the Bush era, I was one of millions who looked to Obama as a hope for the future.  However, I remember when Obama voted for the telecom immunity bill.  Up to that point I had been regularly contributing to his campaign, but I never did again after that, and I wrote his campaign a letter about the issue.  However, I forgave him, and I even was fortunate enough to attend his inauguration.

Dune is one of the few books I have read multiple times.  To briefly summarize; Dune is a book about galactic political intrigue, and is set in the distant future.  The evil Baron Harkonnen plots to control the planet Arrakis.  He conquers the Atreides family and installs one of his two nephews as the ruler of the planet.  He chooses the brutal Rabban to take control of Arrakis and thus begins a reign of terror.  The Baron plans to wait until the inhabitants have suffered greatly to the point of breaking and he will then have Rabban executed and install Feyd to take over as Ruler.  He hopes Feyd will be welcomed as the Savior of Arrakis. However, Feyd is in fact even more sadistic than Rabban, just more refined.  He is a surgeon rather than a meat cutter.  In this situation, Paul Atreides finds himself struggling to survive after his family is defeated by the Harkonnens.  He is exiled to the desert where he gathers the natives and returns to defeat the Harkonnens and become the true savior of the planet Arrakis. Good defeats Evil.

Around the time of the telecom bill vote, I happened to catch Dune on television for the hundredth time.  I remember having a conversation about this with my family.  My mind made a connection between Bush and Obama with regard to the Rabban, Feyd, and Paul relationship.

As we know, Bush and his evil "Uncle" Cheney had spent quite an effort in establishing sweeping new authoritarian powers for the President.  These powers would not just disappear into thin air after the election.  The next US President would find him or herself in a new office with new powers over the US population that are unprecedented in our history.  This is a very tempting situation for anyone.  As the old saying goes, power corrupts.  My hope was that Barack Obama would reverse the Bush/Cheney unitary executive powers, but I also realized there was a great risk he would not when he voted for telecom immunity.

President Obama has made some disturbing choices regarding personal liberty and government secrecy.  Obama's Preventive Detention proposal goes beyond anything Bush ever publicly proposed.  We should all be nervous about the future.  Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  I hope Mr. Obama changes course on these important issues.

I hope we elected a Paul and not a Feyd...