In it Knee Deep
congress, obama, one term 9:06 AM
Nancy Pelosi and President Obama may be disasters for this country, but boy-oh-boy are they an early Christmas present for me and for the Right. Nancy is more than ankle deep in doo doo and keeps digging deeper. Meanwhile, for the third time in three days, the president has reverted back to Bush policy on the War on Terror.
Flip Flops:
1)Military tribunals
2)Blocking detainee photos
3)Terror suspect indefinite detention
Obama faces harsh criticism from the Left. The ACLU has promised to take the president to court against the Military Tribunals, even with the Obama changes proposed. This of course is not to say that the Right is excited either, considering Obama still wants to stick to his year deadline to close Guantanamo without any viable plan to deal with the detainees after closure.
Mr. President, when you promised change, we didn't know you meant you'd take so many U-turns on your own positions! We mere mortals have whiplash, oh chosen one!
Flip Flops:
1)Military tribunals
2)Blocking detainee photos
3)Terror suspect indefinite detention
Obama faces harsh criticism from the Left. The ACLU has promised to take the president to court against the Military Tribunals, even with the Obama changes proposed. This of course is not to say that the Right is excited either, considering Obama still wants to stick to his year deadline to close Guantanamo without any viable plan to deal with the detainees after closure.
Mr. President, when you promised change, we didn't know you meant you'd take so many U-turns on your own positions! We mere mortals have whiplash, oh chosen one!
Posted by Nick Stone
on 9:06 AM.
Filed under
Posts
I don't understand why you're being so hard on him for revising his positions. He's not "flip flopping" so much as he's revising his positions once he learns more about them. Let's go down your list of three and see why you categorically stating he's making a "U-Turn" on these issues is incorrect.
1) Military Tribunals - Yes, Obama criticized the Bush Administration for this and he had suspended them when he came into office (but did not ban them outright). The majority of prisoners will receive a fair and just trial, however there are a select few who will still be subject to the military tribunals. This, according to the Obama Administration, is due in large part to how dangerous these particular people are.
While some on the left may disagree with "military tribunals" terminology, it can NOT be argued that these will resume in the exact same manner as before. While they will be held in secrecy, the prisoners are being given a number of rights that they were simply not granted before. These rights are fundamental to any system of justice and the fact they were being excluded in the first place is just a little more than absurd. Among these? Allowing prisoners to have private conversations with their attorneys, the banning of hearsay evidence and excluding all evidence gained from "enhanced interrogation techniques." By the way, someone should ask John McCain about the accuracy of information about information gained from torture. He was asked to name the others in his platoon and instead named the starting line of the Green Bay Packers to throw them off the trail as he was being tortured.
So what we have here was Obama suspending a practice so it could be reviewed and then reinstating it with the recommended changes (from his own attorneys and civil rights advocates). This is not a U-Turn but a smart way to handle a complicated situation.
2) Blocking Detainee Photos - While campaigning for a better and more transparent government, Obama promised to come clean about what the US did under the Bush administration (war crimes, included). Which he has done in any number of ways, including releasing the memos which showcased the specifics as to how the United States tortured (using techniques, I might add, that we stole from North Korea and the Vietnamese, from their respective wars). However, over the last 10 years, a number of studies have come to showcase just how damning the Abu Ghraib photos were to our image worldwide. Is has been said by those who have seen these pictures in question, that they are even worse then Abu Ghraib, as they show acts of horror and violence so bad that once congressman said it's like venturing into the "depths of hell." Perhaps Obama saw the pictures in question and realized just how badly those would look globally as he's just starting to make headways into improving the damage done to our image over the last eight years. Call it a flip flop if you will, but it's pretty clear this is a case of simply making a smart revision. He kept half the bargain by releasing the memos, but the photos would just do too much damage in our media-centric world. We do not need to create more terrorists by handing them the propaganda on a plate. You should be thanking Obama for this, not proclaiming you just got whiplash or some other skin ailment.
3) This one has been pretty blown out of proportion. It has been said that Obama might bring some people onto the US soil but it is not clear what he will do with them from that point, leaving many in the media open to speculate that he will hold them without trial. And please, don't give me that Republican "Not In My Backyard" nonsense about terrorists coming to this country. We keep the Oklahoma city bomber, the Unabomber and the "20th Hijacker" in Colorado. They ain't getting out anytime soon and there are no complaints from either side about the safety of Florence, CO or about the treatment of the prisoners.
So, Nick, maybe you should tone down your rhetoric and do some research before you start making smarmy remarks towards the President.
I'd really appreciate a response. The last couple of times you haven't bothered to respond. Thanks!
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. You know,smarmy is a word you don't see used enough. Kudos for that.
Obviously, we both have predetermined opinions on the president, and we will see every decision he makes through the lenses of our own high or low opinion of him.
Let me go back through your concerns, and then make the BIG point if you'll allow.
To give credit where it is due, you're not wrong about the tribunals - that is to say, he has promised that they will be largely different than Bush tribunals. That's NOT the problem. The concern is that he campaigned vigorously on ending them for detainees and using the "faith" he has in our American courts. That wouldn't be pretty because of the sketchy evidence we have on these shadowy characters, and also problematic because of the lengths we went to to obtain the evidence.
If we're not releasing the photos because we don't want to hand over propaganda to extremists, then why did the president release memos detailing our interrogation and detention practices? The photos will likely be leaked anyway, but I actually don't have a problem with him refusing to release them at the urging of his generals. History shows that there is indeed a period of prolonged increased violence in the wake of photo released of detainee abuse. I'll gladly accept that - it is the 180 I'm concerned about. Why not ask the generals in the first place before opening our big mouth and having to insert foot?
Many of the detainees in Guantanamo didn't actually commit a crime on US soil. That's a big problem. Also, it's not only Republicans who have threatened to light a fire in Washington if they are brought here. On ABC's "This Week", Sens. Kyl and Webb were in perfect agreement that the detainees have no business being tried or detained on US soil and that they would loudly oppose any policy of sending them to their states of AZ and VA. Also, Brownback has promised hell on the administration if the detainees go to Leavenworth. So it's complex, but it is a matter of international law, once again.
But now, the BIG point. When people like me, like Hillary Clinton and like John McCain claimed that several of Obama's policies on the campaign trail were naive and/or just rhetoric, we were laughed at and/or racist, extremist, stupid, clinging to old ways, yadda yadda.
But as the president took office and actually had to follow through with those promises or reverse course, he largely has reversed. That's because he had to come to grips with the reality that his proposals are over-simplistic, utopian, and completely out of touch with not just the political realities but the actual effects on Americans. His reversals have come in the economy, domestic policy, and foreign policy.
You HAVE TO ask yourself, if Hillary's policies were clinging on to old ways against change, then why has he adopted so many of them? If Bush's policies were cowboy and reckless, why have we reverted back to so many of them (lots more than the three enumerated on this post)?
Also, if this truly is the "New Era of Accountability", then you'd better bet your ass that I'm going to call him out every time he pulls a 180 or refuses to take a clear position. He asked us to hold his feet to the fire, and we must. If that makes me smarmy, then I'll gladly wear the badge with pride.
Nick, you were right to call him out on it. Anonymous wants to deny that Obama is "flip flopping", but that's what it is. There's nothing wrong with changing your mind, especially when you have new information that helps you make a better decision. The issue is how often it happens. The more it happens, the more I believe that we could have chosen someone who didn't need to arrive at this new conclusion but rather someone who was already there becuase his or her philosophy didn't need to be so drastically readjusted.
It is naivety and intensified by lack of experience. But we shouldn't be so naive. Pretending that Obama isn't flipflopping and is somehow superior than others than have changed their positions is a disservice to all of us.