Barely a month into the job and there’s chatter among the political blogs that President Barack Obama differs little from the former president now living in Dallas. The Daily Show host Jon Stewart got the ball rolling on Obama’s first day by noting both men used the same rhetoric in their speeches.

That conversation will only get louder after what happened yesterday.  The lawsuit Mohamed et al v. Jeppsen Dataplan, Inc. involves 5 men who claim they were flown by the San Jose Boeing subsidiary to CIA secret camps and tortured. The case was thrown out last year because the Bush Administration claimed national security concerns. Yesterday when the suit was brought on appeal, by the ACLU, to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the Obama Administration  made the same exact argument.

“A source inside of the Ninth U.S. District Court tells ABC News that a representative of the Justice Department stood up to say that its position hasn’t changed, that new administration stands behind arguments that previous administration made, with no ambiguity at all. The DOJ lawyer said the entire subject matter remains a state secret.”

This dearth of hope and change has the ACLU miffed.

“Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama’s Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU. “If this is a harbinger of things to come, it will be a long and arduous road to give us back an America we can be proud of again.”

I really can’t take the ACLU seriously about this. From the famous 2002 speech when Obama came out against the Iraq War to multiple positions he has taken, it’s always been clear Obama is not your standard ACLU liberal. Only “brain-iacs” like Sean Hannity have thought otherwise.

What all of this means is still murky and no one from the Pakistani government is speaking publicly. Any foreign policy wonks out there who want to add any light?

PS: RIP Eartha Kitt.

Today, the Obama administration officially announced the foreign policy team for the next four years.

Not surprisingly, many of the appointments are former Clintonites (including Hillary), and stand to the right of Obama on the political spectrum. This includes the maintenance of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense – a post he stated a year ago he would likely not continue under a Democratic President. It also includes Susan Rice, former assistant to Madeleine Albright.

For those of us who bought into the Obama change mantra, the “team of Washington insiders” (according to David Brooks, conservative columnist for the New York Times) isn’t very reassuring.

How can we believe that U.S. policies abroad will be different this time when everyone in charge of decision-making is more hawkish than the President America voted for?

Part of the reason many liberals criticized Hillary Clinton was because she voted for the war in Iraq. Robert Gates led the surge in Iraq. Susan Rice was key in the decision not to intervene in Rwanda in 1994.

Things don’t look so good for change in America.

Still, Gates made noise this summer about investigating military use of private contractors and has publicly endorsed diplomatic means when military intervention seems futile. Clinton stated time and time again that her vote on Iraq was a mistake and Rice insists she learned from her inaction in 1994.

Perhaps the most reassuring fact is that Obama is emphasizing experience rather than policy allegiance when questioned about his choices. Those who are loathe to abandon their enthusiasm for this administration can only hope that centrist players are being used to push through a progressive agenda.

The folk who run the op/ed section of the New York Times need a primer in the art of public relations. Two presumptive nominees for the White House, questions and debates on how to manage a war. One nominee, Barack Obama, gets his piece on what to do with Iraq published. John McCain, who has foreign policy chops that Obama lacks, is told his submission on the same topic does not meet the standards of the the Old Gray Lady.

Yes it’s true the newspaper asked Senator McCain for a rewrite and even offered suggestions to add some punch to what the Arizona senator first sent in. Sure the op/ed editor makes clear he wants to have McCain published, but we are talking about a guy who is running to be leader of the free world not a nameless hack who is looking for a clip that will make him a household name (”Mr Withers? Your table is ready sir.”). By not publishing McCain’s essay, the New York Times simply played into the assumption the media is doing all it can to get the junior senator from Illinois elected. A much cleaner response would have been publication based on a couple of changes. By doing that, the New York Times would have saved itself from the bias memo being peddled by Republicans.