I think this is giving him too much credit. Obama's career is too short to think of him as anything other than a lucky ticket holder. He's Warren Harding, or even George W. Bush again - it matters less what he believes and has done and more what the prevailing wisdom is. The main story in American government is continuity: no matter who sits the throne, it's the needs of the same establishment class that get met.
This is not to excuse the behavior of the man who chose to push buttons and kill people from the sky, but Obama did not invent any of this stuff. The drone program had already been created and had a life of its own. Obama was merely willing to play along with the game (instead of, say, cleaning out the CIA of torturers). The same goes for the rest - certainly, Obama wants power, but I think he actually sold himself for precious little of it.
This is not to excuse the behavior of the man who chose to push buttons and kill people from the sky, but Obama did not invent any of this stuff. The drone program had already been created and had a life of its own. Obama was merely willing to play along with the game (instead of, say, cleaning out the CIA of torturers). The same goes for the rest - certainly, Obama wants power, but I think he actually sold himself for precious little of it.