Is Obama strengthening (rather than "changing") the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism? (Salon)

[KoKo]

(For DU Dial Up's there's a link to the transcript if you hit the Salon Site...and you don't have to sign up to get it)...it's worth the listen and the read whatever computer stuff you deal with.)

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Thursday July 2, 2009 11:03 EDT
Salon Radio: Charlie Savage on Obama's civil liberties record

mic

http://dir.salon.com/topics/glenn_greenwald_radio/

(updated w/transcript)

Back in February, The New York Times' Charlie Savage -- who won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing Bush's use of signing statements to break the law -- wrote an article reporting that, after a first-week Executive Order from Obama banning torture, "the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda," which is "prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies." About Savage's February article, I wrote:

While believing that Savage's article is of great value in sounding the right alarm bells, I think that he paints a slightly more pessimistic picture on the civil liberties front than is warranted by the evidence thus far (though only slightly).

In retrospect, Savage was right and I was wrong about that: his February article was far more prescient than premature.

Today, in the NYT, Savage has another article examining the same topic, headlined: "To Critics, New Policy on Terror Looks Old." In it, he explores this question: "Has , on issues related to fighting terrorism, turned out to be little different from his predecessor?" A key point from Savage's article -- which I've tried to emphasize several times -- is that whereas these policies were supported by roughly half the population (Republicans) in the Bush era but vehemently opposed by the other half (at least ostensibly), Obama's embrace of them is now causing a large part of the other half of the population (Democrats) to support them as well, thus entrenching them as bipartisan consensus:

In any case, Jack Balkin, a Yale Law School professor, said Mr. Obama’s ratification of the basic outlines of the surveillance and detention policies he inherited would reverberate for generations. By bestowing bipartisan acceptance on them, Mr. Balkin said, Mr. Obama is consolidating them as entrenched features of government.

"What we are watching," Mr. Balkin said, "is a liberal, centrist, Democratic version of the construction of these same governing practices."

That was the point former Bush DOJ lawyer Jack Goldsmith made when arguing last month that Obama is actually strengthening (rather than "changing") the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism even more effectively than Bush did by entrenching those policies in law and causing unprincipled Democrats to switch from pretending to oppose them to supporting them, thus transforming them into bipartisan dogma.

Savage is my guest on Salon Radio today to talk about Obama's record on terrorism and civil liberties, and the way -- as Savage describes it -- Obama has embraced and replicated many of the core "War on Terror" polices of the Bush presidency, particularly in the form they took in Bush's second term (even as Obama largely purports to reject the Bush theories of unilateral presidential power). We also discuss how so many people who previously criticized these polices rather vocally when pursued by Bush are either silent or actively supportive now that Obama is defending them. There simply aren't any better reporters on these issues than Savage, and I highly recommend listening to his very nuanced and well-informed views on these topics.

The discussion is roughly 20 minutes in length and can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below. A transcript will be posted shortly.



UPDATE: The transcript is now posted here.

http://dir.salon.com/topics/glenn_greenwald_radio/

On a note related to all of this, the Obama administration -- which has repeatedly delayed releasing a less redacted version of the 2004 report of the CIA's Inspector General that aggressively challenged both the legality and efficacy of torture -- today announced that it would delay its disclosure by at least another seven weeks, to August 31, 2009. We're in the New Era of Tranpsarency.

[choie]

1. K&R

..waiting for the Obama apologists to "unrecommend"..

[slipslidingaway]

2. knr #5 (for now) n/t

[bertman]

3. The President must be scratching his head, figuring out what to do with that rook he's

holding in his left hand.

[flyarm]

4. and then we have this...........

Stunning al-Haramain Filing Shames Obama; Shows Duplicity Of Officials
By: bmaz Thursday July 9, 2009 12:35 pm http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com /

In early June, a critical hearing was held in front of Judge Vaughn Walker in the al-Haramain warrantless wiretapping case. As a result of that hearing, Judge Walker entered an order commanding the attorney for plaintiffs al-Haramain et. al to file a motion for summary judgement. Hot off the press, the motion was filed minutes ago, and it is a stunning demonstration of just how disingenuous and two faced President Obama and his administration have been on the seminal issues of warrantless wiretapping, protection of Constitutional rights, transparency and accountability.

The first words in the main body of the motion are a stark reminder to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder of the very words and promises they have spoken in the past on the issue of illegal wiretapping:

“Warrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional.”
President Barack Obama, December 20, 2007

“We owe the American people a reckoning.”
Attorney General Eric Holder, June 13, 2008

Apparently those words only were operative during the election, because that sure is not what Obama and Holder are saying and doing now. Instead, in pretty much as big of a Constitutional about face as is imaginable, Obama has decided to turn his back on his words and promises and throw his lot in with Bush and Cheney by asserting state secrets to protect the government from inquiry and accountability on its illegal and unconstitutional acts. It is not radical left wing bloggers saying that, it is distinguished US Senator Russell Feingold:


Of State Secrets, he said the Administration's repeated assertion of State Secrets in litigation was reminiscent of the Bush Administration. He alluded to the cases before Vaughn Walker, and complained that the invocation of State Secrets would prevent Americans from finding out what really went on with the warrantless wiretap program

Senator Feingold is exactly right in his quote.



read the rest at Emptywheel's blog........