Rick, you really need to apologize to Raunchy and me. Your initial comments were totally uncalled for and about as irrational as it gets around here. I don't expect apologies from the likes of Barry and Vaj, but you're supposed to be the chap who's always fair.
That being said: --- In [email protected], "Rick Archer" <r...@...> wrote: > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of authfriend > Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 12:10 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Obama: A Slippery Pol with Pretty Words > > He was the guy who said he was going to repair the > damage Bush had done to the Constitution. Was he just > not very well informed about all that? Did he show > poor judgment? > > If he changed his mind once he got in office and was > able to inform himself, and he decided to stick with > Bush's policies, maybe Bush's judgment wasn't so bad > after all. > > He's got a lot on his plate and I don't think he wants > to spend all his time and energy in contentious fights > that would force him to ignore more urgent priorities. It's not what he "wants" to do, it's what he's already *done*. He didn't need to engage in any contentious fights to do it, and apparently these *were* his most urgent priorities. > Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al deserve prosecution > (not that Obama ever expected to do that), but we > happen to have an economy and an environment in > dire straits, and a couple of wars to fight. It's what he's done to cement Bush policies in regard to how to conduct those wars--the very policies you say BushCo should be prosecuted for pursuing--that I'm talking about. In Salon today, Glenn Greenwald discusses a piece by former Bush OLC lawyer Jack Goldsmith in The New Republic that examines (and mostly approves of) Obama's terrorism policies. Here's the Goldsmith piece: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1e733cac-c273-48e5-9140-80443ed1f5e2&p=1 http://tinyurl.com/r4w9hf Here's an excerpt from Greenwald: "...The more Obama embraces the Bush/Cheney approach, the more praise he gets for Centrism. "What is most damaging about all of this is exactly what Goldsmith celebrated: that Obama's political skills, combined with his status as a Democrat, is strengthening Bush/Cheney terrorism policies and solidifying them further. For the last eight years, roughly half the country -- Republicans, Bush followers -- was trained to cheer for indefinite detention, presidential secrecy, military commissions, warrantless eavesdropping, denial of due process, a blind acceptance of any presidential assertion that these policies are necessary to Keep Us Safe, and the claim that only fringe Far Leftist Purists -- civil liberties extremists -- could possibly object to any of that. "Now, much of the other half of the country, the one that once opposed those policies -- Democrats, Obama supporters -- are now reciting the same lines, adopting the same mentality, because doing so is necessary to justify what Obama is doing. It's hard to dispute the Right's claim that Bush's Terrorism approach is being vindicated by Obama's embrace of its 'essential elements.' That's what Goldsmith means when he says that Obama is making these policies stronger and more palatable, and it's what media stars mean when they describe Bush/Cheney policies as Centrist: now that it's not just an unpopular Republican President but also a highly charismatic and popular Democratic President advocating and defending these core Bush/Cheney policies, they do become the political consensus of the United States." http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/19/obama/index.html http://tinyurl.com/pjbe3x
