Washington Post assistant managing editor for politics Bill Hamilton apparently thinks a lot more of his reporters’ abilities this week than he has over the past 21 months.

He’s finally letting them focus on issues.

The Post reports that nearly 50 advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have been working for months to identify areas in which he could use executive orders to make an immediate impact upon moving in to the White House on Jan. 20.

One anonymous source (Gee! Another anonymous source! Now there’s something new!) says that the advisers are consulting with liberal advocacy groups, Capitol Hill staffers and potential agency chiefs to prioritize those they regard as the “most onerous or ideologically offensive.“

Oh boy: Liberal advocacy groups identifying policies they regard as ideologically offensive? Sounds like more of that much-ballyhooed “bipartisanship” is on the way.

Obama is reportedly planning executive orders to reverse Bush Administration policies on federal funding for stem cell research, oil and gas drilling, carbon dioxide emissions and federal funding for international family planning groups that provide information on abortion.

Barack Obama might not have ever been in the Oval Office before Monday, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t familiar with the more shadowy aspects of the job.

Obama said earlier this year that he because he respects the Constitution, “We’re not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress.”

Signing statements have been used to “modify the meaning of laws,“ whereas executive orders have been used to “(move) existing laws away from their original mandates.“

Isn’t that the same thing?

Where executive orders have been abused, Obama can invalidate them. But he doesn’t have to continue the trend by enacting his own abusive executive orders to reverse existing abusive executive orders.

In other words, getting rid of the policies that are “ideologically offensive” to certain groups of Americans doesn’t require instituting other policies that are ideologically offensive to other groups of Americans. Sure, to the victor go the spoils. But I thought Obama’s election was supposed to usher in an era in which we were above all that.

Obama has an opportunity with the executive orders issue to demonstrate that he’s interested in governing from the center. He can send a signal that he intends to leave the finer points of onerous policy to Congress—where they belong.

Will he?