Winehole23
04-23-2010, 04:25 PM
The American Prospect's Adam Serwer becomes the latest to comprehensively chronicle (http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_kinder_gentler_gitmo) what is no longer in dispute among reasonable people: "the Obama administration's failure to reverse the trajectory of U.S. national-security policy and of its ultimate decision to embrace the core framework of the Bush administration's 'war on terror'." As Serwer puts it: "Obama hasn't departed from the Bush administration tactics on national security, he's just changed tone." Relatedly, The Washington Post publishes a letter from the ACLU's Anthony Romero (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/18/AR2010041803384.html) who -- responding to The Post's unsurprising editorial support for Obama's assassination programs -- explains why such policies are plainly "unlawful." Isn't it amazing that it even needs to be debated whether the President has the right to order the death sentence for American citizens far away from any battlefield with no trials given or even charges posed? Even more amazing is that it's actually not debated -- not because it's widely understood that the President has no such power, but because, between the authoritarian GOP and the Obama-loyal Democratic Party, there is bipartisan consensus for any lawless and Constitution-destroying actions Obama embraces. That outcome -- bipartisan consensus for what were once deemed the province of radical, right-wing Bush/Cheney policies -- is, as much as anything, a key impact of the Obama presidency. As Serwer writes, Obama's signature is "embracing Bush-era policies with minor substantive changes and a dramatic change in tone. This is Bush with a smile."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/23/various_matters/index.html
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/23/various_matters/index.html