On Jan 19, 2009, at 10:07 AM, Roger Howard wrote: > > On Jan 19, 2009, at 9:48 AM, Lawrence Sica wrote: >> No offense but they just need to shut up and let Obama get in >> office before they start making demands. > > No "they" don't. We all have a right to a voice and an opinion.
I think what Larry might be saying (correct me if I'm wrong, Larry) is that ... let's get Obama in office - get Holder appointed (so far, Holder has said waterboarding is torture and there is precedent for prosecution. He hasn't said he'll pursue Cheney and the others) The US has admitted to waterboarding. Waterboarding is a war crime. It's hard to get around that simple fact. So Obama is in a quandary. He knows he needs to pull together Republicans and Democrats in order to solve the economic crisis and deal with Iraq and Aghanistan. At the same time, he swears to uphold the laws of the land. He often states his background in Constitutional law. The fact that he nominated Holder says something. I don't think we should shut up though -- I think we need to keep the pressure on Obama. From Obama's perspective, maybe it's a matter of opportune timing. > Obama > is a grownup, he signed up for this and he and his advisors can sort > out the issues, but no one has to shut-up... that's a despicable > attitude, one fortunately not shared by the new administration and one > that reeks of blindly following.. not something I think this new > president has asked for. > >> They also need to understand there are more important problems right >> now than a public circus. > > The US govt. is more than capable of multitasking, and again it is not > up to *us* to decide the order of operations - we can demand > accountability and yet understand that he's got other things going on > - he has specifically acknowledged that in his role he doesn't get to > pick and choose the one thing he wants to focus on. > > > Just because his current position may be soft on this issue, and > people are hyper-sensitive to criticizing Obama this early on, doesn't > mean we need to avoid the tough issues. He asked to be, and will be, > held to a higher standard, which in my mind means not sweeping under > the rug massive abuses of the Constitution just because it's > politically inconvenient. ditto > > > Now is exactly the time for supporters and detractors alike to be > making their demands clear. true .. And for Obama, he needs to play a chess game - figuring out how to get the Republicans to go along with his agenda. He knows investigating and prosecuting is the right thing to do. He also knows if he goes after the "evil ones" (who may include Pelosi, Rockerfeller and other Dems) too early, he'll get nothing done as the Republicans will simply block everything he attempts to accomplish. But yeah, we shouldn't shut up, at all. Let all voices be heard. You too, Chuck :-) k _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
