In a Pajamas Media [1] article [1] I wrote just after Obama was deified:
Indeed, it is Obama who apparently is doing the most in terms of recognizing (the far left’s bleeding anti-Bush vitriol notwithstanding) that Mr. Bush didn’t do that bad of a job after all. He’s adopting the vast majority of his anti-terrorism and economic policies (i.e., the bailout plans).
Notice, please, the not-so-surprising indications that President Obama plans to work within the structures of Mr. Bush’s anti-terrorism measures. As an example, I mentioned at BitsBlog recently [2] the expanded presidential wiretapping powers, and how the FISA court had ruled in Bush’s favor — a fact little reported by the Dinosaur Media. (Oddly, the report I cited was a New York Times piece.) There has certainly been some argument back and forth over these measures. The fact remains, however, that Obama, while still a senator and presidential candidate, voted for those expanded powers. For all the noise that Mr. Obama is making with regards to water boarding (a practice I should point out was already banned in 2006 under Mr. Bush), Obama has refused repeatedly to explicitly ban all interrogation methods not outlined in the Army Field Manual.
For all the vitriol that has been coming from the left, and specifically out of President Obama’s mouth during the campaign, there’s a difference in tone coming out of the Obama camp over the last several weeks. There has been an abandonment of the hot rhetoric of the leftist in favor of of a liberal forced to face the reality of the world around him (i.e., adopting existing White House policy). The change in tone is a recognition that the rhetoric that the American public was offered during the election was simply not based on reality.
As President Obama and his people are briefed on what has been happening in the world these last eight years, the insider’s view has given them a completely new perspective on what to do about the situation, resulting in completely different actions as compared to the ones they were telling everyone they would take once they were given the power.
President Obama and his fellow Democrats are now responsible for the outcome of the next four years. They are pragmatic enough to understand that they are the ones who will take it on the chin politically after the next terrorist attack or if the current economic problems continue for long. They’re beginning to understand how wrong they were in chastising Mr. Bush and his policies. Thus, they are adopting them. That, dear reader, is vindication.
They earnestly hope that nobody, particularly on the left, will notice the change in direction.
So, you can imagine that I was extraordinarily interested to learn that following the most recent midterm elections the Obama administration has decided not to pursue their insane policy of trying terrorists in civilian courts. [3]
Video [4]
At least, they put the whole process on “Hold” until after the next election. At this stage of the game what we have is a White House trapped in its own politics. They proclaimed and back in the campaign of 2008, that they would be trying these people in civilian courts, and they based their claims on constitutional grounds. It struck me as interesting at the time, because it’s one of the few times that the left has ever given a damn about the constitution or its meaning.
This would seem to be confirmed with the idea that now that the politics of the thing puts them in an impossible situation, there going to keep KSM, as an example, behind bars in the hands of the military until after the next election when it’s possibly more politically feasible. Ask yourself a question ; if the constitution and not politics were the prime motivation for Obama and company, would even be close to proposing keeping him in custody until after the next election? We both know better, you and I.
What we have here is an utterly clueless group of liberals [5]caught up in their own nonsense.
What this is in the end is Obama being forced once again to recognize that Bush did the correct thing… while trying desperately not to admit exactly that because of the political costs involved.
The problem now, of course, is that the correct thing isn’t very popular with his far leftist base. He needs their support to make it past the next election, if there is indeed a hope in hell of him doing so, at all. So, he refuses to hold the trials at Guantánamo bay, which would be a total and complete admission that the policy of holding such trials and civilian courts is a bad move and one that never should have been proposed in the heat of the election. He also refuses, on the other hand, to make arrangements for a civilian trial which will not only annoy centrists but the leftist based in the states where he would propose such trials be held. For example we note the objections coming from prominent Dems such as New York’s governor elect Andrew Cuomo.
In short, Obama’s mouth got caught writing checks that in reality he can’t cash.