News Flash! Barack Obama is not a liberal.
Some of the Ways that Barack will Irritate the Left

1) Obama will not pull out of Iraq right away. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if there were American soldiers still stationed in Iraq when he leaves office (even after eight years).

2) He will increase and intensify our engagement in Afghanistan. Some of the soldiers who leave Iraq will be sent to the forgotten war instead, which is getting more and more difficult and threatens to topple the government of Pakistan. That will be a long fight too.

3) Barack Obama will bring Republicans into his inner circle as well as his Cabinet. Democrats looking for revenge against the total exclusion from influence under Bush are going to be deeply disappointed. We have to be the grown-ups here and include the other side the way Bush should have after 9-11.

4) There will be few or no prosecutions for the actions of major government officials who have clearly violated the law. Even if we can be sure who ordered American officials to torture prisoners, spy on Americans without a warrant, and the other horrible things the Bush administration has done, there will be no prosecutions. Obama realizes that trials of people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, etc would be a national circus. Besides, Bush will probably take this option off the table by giving blanket pardons for everyone involved.

5) Many other things that I haven't even thought of yet.

The bottom line is that Obama is a pragmatist and he hopes to expand the reach of the Democratic party. That means reaching out to moderates and conservatives and sometimes upseting the liberal base. I think he is going to be a problem solver, which is exactly the kind of person we need in charge with all of the disasters coming down around us.