How can President Obama's apparent contradictions be understood?

From a naïve viewpoint, President Obama seems to be acting and thinking very erratically and self-contradictorily. For example, he praised whistle-blowers and promised the "most transparent administration in history" in the past. Now he persecutes whistle-blowers and even journalists who report leaked information. Similarly, Obama is now conducting drone warfare with little apparent regard for innocents, he's continued to use Gitmo, and he's escalated attacks on privacy, freedom of speech and other civil rights using the Patriot Act. Yet he condemned the Bush Administration for similar (or lesser) offenses in his 2008 campaign. Why has this happened? Was Obama just scheming and lying to gain power? Did he simply change his mind once he got into office? Or can some deeper moral core be found to integrate his words and deeds into a coherent ideology?