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Saturday, May 16, 2009

Obama Following in Bush's Footsteps? Sorry NY Times, But Not So Much!
Posted by Melina | 1:07 PM

I guess I just don't like absolutes. Today's New York Times has a front page, (front page internets, and A3 hard copy, I guess,) story about how Obama, like Bush, is leading by second thought. This story and stories like it, infuriate me because apparently the 100 day examiners and the knee jerk liberals, not to mention whats left of the fringy right, would hold the President to every campaign promise regardless of the passage of time or what he might've found out upon taking office. I would say that actually, unlike Bush, Obama will, hopefully, thoughtfully and intelligently weigh what he feels that he has to do to try to dig us out of the hole that Bush dug, and if it means that he might have to rethink things he said even last week, so be it. Our laws may allow some of the bad guys to go free because of Bush's abuse of the system or even system flaws, but our laws are all we've got.

David Sanger, in his news analysis, writes:

Mr. Obama balked on releasing the photographs of prisoners after the military — and his influential defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, the cabinet’s one holdover from the Bush administration — argued that making them public would hand Islamic militants a propaganda coup that could lead to renewed attacks on American forces.


Balked? Really? In the real world, with a real leader, this might be a little more than "oh my god, I cant do that because of the terra!" I call this piece lazy writing by Sanger, who obviously hasn't the inclination to consider that maybe there is more to it. I'm trying to be careful to not blindly follow whatever is coming out of the Obama administration, because my knee jerk tendency always is to question, and especially after the past 8 years, (when many reporters, by the way, were glad to repeat the talking points.) But I am leaning towards trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt in the issues that he is struggling with. To me, balking on this thing would be to not allow prisoners to have due process. I think that the rest is going to take a little time.

Look, I don't agree with everything that Obama is doing, but then, I never thought I would; did any of you? We liberals have this tendency to turn on our own, blindly, if something has the whiff of a shift right, regardless of what might be best for the country. Do any of us think that Obama would want make us unsafe, much less, for the really skeptical out there, would he want to anger his base? Its unlikely that he is considering winning over anyone with any of these decisions, considering whats left of the right, so maybe, just maybe, there is some reason out there. Would we not want him to listen to the military commanders or his advisors? Wouldn't that be more like Bush, really?

Are we gonna throw open the jail doors and say that they can all just go free? Or does it make more sense to look at the cases and give the prisoners the rights that have been denied them? Chances are that the Bush administration's handling of these cases will not stand up to even the lightest scrutiny and we will lose bad guys anyway; but did any of us think that Obama was gonna head out and put flowers in the muzzles of the guns of the enemy that the Bush administration went so far out of their way to inflame? We can't reverse force so quickly as to put our forces and our country in danger. To act so precipitously would be exactly like Bush!

We are stuck with what Bush left us, and the echo of Cheney telling us that nothing will work except all out destruction; destruction of our rights and of the enemy. Those people don't speak in diplomatic terms and they have a heavy hand. There is danger, and just because Obama has entered into the impossible job of unraveling a terrible knot woven, seemingly purposely, by these freaks, how can we not give him the space to sort this out?

So when Sanger says:

In announcing on Friday that he would retain the military commission system set up by Mr. Bush, even while expanding the rights of detainees to mount a vigorous defense, Mr. Obama suggested that there was no inherent conflict between keeping the nation safe and reasserting values that he and many of his supporters believed had been swept aside during the Bush years.


Isn't the real point that what Obama's first steps consist of is the "expanding the rights of detainees to mount a vigorous defense," part, as opposed to the "system set up by Mr. Bush," part? Are we that easily inflamed? Further, we are treated to the thoughts of one of Karl Rove's ex-staff members (who is not worth mentioning by name because as assholes, these Bush people seem to all have an opinion,) from during his time in the White House, telling us how the left feels that these course changes are "just this side of a betrayal...." And he is so in step with the feelings of the left because...?...he is studying us or something? His kid is a leftie? Screw him and his Rovian propaganda bullshit of planting ideas so that the American people can absorb them and spew them back out!

Military tribunals may be necessary or not, depending on what Obama's team finds out about the detainees. But it seems clear that Obama is interested in extending the prisoners their rights, first and foremost. It may take more that 100 days to close Guantanamo, and it may cost some of the money that the Bushies were busy funneling to their private contractors and cronies. For God's sake, lets take a step back and see what this administration can accomplish. I'm not saying that we shouldn't criticize, but to flat out say that Obama is following in Bush's footsteps is just plain lazy, formulaic, and idiotic!

c/p RIP Coco

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1 Comments:
Blogger missy said...
Melina,

I would agree with you except that the rest of the world has already seen many of these photos, and Obama has to know that.

The only rationale that makes sense, then, is that Obama wants these photos to stay away from American teevee screens.

Right now, less informed Americans are still on the fence with regard to punishing the torturers and their abettors, and Obama REALLY doesn't want this issue to gain any more momentum, because he believes it was monkey-wrench his policy goals. If we get to see pictures of kids being sodomized with lightsticks, the balance will shift and investigation/prosecution will no longer be avoidable.

"Protecting the troops" is an easy way out, and Obama took it.

"Ending our long national nightmare" meant that many in the Nixon administration went unpunished, and they were able to come back and run amok under Reagan. Clinton's determination to put his policy goals ahead of investigating/punishing those involved in Iran Contra meant we got Elliot Abrhams, John Negroponte and that whole class of GOP freaks back under GWB.

These people keep coming back to subvert our democracy because we keep letting them off the hook in favor of "looking forward." And whether Obama takes it on directly or not, this will affect his policy priorities because the criminals are still able to be out there as legitimate commentators, critiquing his administration.

The only way to be able to move forward on policy is to prosecute and delegitimize the criminal organization that is the GOP once and for all. They will continue to have the power to de-rail whatever progressive moves any president tries to make so long as we keep trying to "look forward."

I understand Obama is trying to take the long view, but it's not long enough. He's looking only to his policy priorities and not to how anything he puts in place can be dismantled by the next GOP administration, filled with the same criminals a Democratic president once again refused to prosecute because he was "looking forward."
5/19/09, 12:32 PM  
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