Charles Krauthammer writes Obama’s Deeds Vindicate Bush:
Of course, Obama will never admit in word what he’s doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech on Thursday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.
The rhetoric is like cosmetic magic making superficial changes while making the Bush policy his own.
Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: “The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e. slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e. the surge) — and now Guantanamo.”
There is something much larger at play — an undeniable, irresistible national interest that, in the end, beyond the cheap politics, asserts itself. The urgencies and necessities of the actual post-9/11 world, as opposed to the fanciful world of the opposition politician, present a rather narrow range of acceptable alternatives.
The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. When the new guys, brought to power by popular will, then adopt the policies of the old guys, a national consensus is forged and a new legitimacy established.
That’s happening before our eyes. The Bush policies in the war on terror won’t have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.
If only Obama weren’t so joined at the hip with NARAL and Planned Parenthood, the unborn might have a chance of getting a Bush-Life policy retained to keep them alive along with the other Bush policies finding new life in this administration.
“Master of Dis-ingenuousness” says Charles Krauthammer of President Obama. While giving Barack Obama high points in a speech that lays out just how difficult decisions are in the making, it was also evident that Obama seeks to satisfy the masses with his mouth rather than corresponding actions.
Full text of Obama speech here: No point in reading it, it’s just more window dressing.
AllahPundit summarizes it well: “We must look forward while also remembering that everything is Bush’s fault, and we must not abandon our core ideals unless doing so would make things too difficult for The One.”
Personally, I’m glad Obama at least pays lip service to the fact that these Gitmo detainees are bad guys, hard core bad guys, not people pick -up at a picnic gone bad.
Obama: “We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who have received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.
As I said, I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture – like other prisoners of war – must be prevented from attacking us again.
Obama still doesn’t get the inconvenient truth that these are not “like other prisoners- of- war,” covered by the Geneva Convention, these are “TERRORISTS” without rights guaranteed by our Constitution to our citizens. By the goodness of our hearts, they are still alive; even though they are still trying to destroy this country and we are the people they, given a chance, still intent to kill.
President Obama knows the power of the faux. The President has trouble with the U.S.Constitution most days of the week and today was one of those days. A reasonable facsimile will do as White House correspondent Jake Tappe found out. “No, that was not an actual copy of the Constitution behind President Obama as he spoke today.”
So the facsimiles were brought out for this event.. The impact of President Obama speaking in the echo-filled chamber with the words “THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERCA” etched in marble behind him were not accidental.
Update: And I was right. Says Brett Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, “He wraps himself in the Constitution, talks about American values and then proceeds to violate them.” Preventive detention seems to be a sticking point, don’tcha know.
President Obama, by his actions to date, has left the U.S.A. weakened. He has handed terrorists information that can help them better prepare their trained operatives to attack us and hold out when interrogated.
First, I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America.
I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.
Still without a Gitmo plan, Obama claims high moral ground for himself while playing to the camera and Europe, who as Charles Krauthammer has pointed out has been sucking on the American teet for 60 years. Personally, in defending my country both morally and ethically, I’d rather see a machine gun on that high ground than pretentious rhetoric. Mich McConnell says what we need is a plan not another speech. No mention from Obama of a plan.
In a remarkable split-screen presentation of opposing worldviews, former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke across town moments later, saying he supported the controversial policies “when they were made, and without hesitation would do so again in the same circumstances.”
“The point is not to look backward,” Cheney said. “A lot rides on our President’s understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.”
Dick Cheney in response to Obama’s speech struck at the yellow underbelly of belly-aching and defended the defenders of this country after 9/11. (Obama still doesn’t seem or won’t admit this country was kept safe on President Bush’s watch.) Cheney astutely and pointedly argued from a position of experience and knowing our country’s need for expediency at the time of 9/11;
“To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.”
Obama for his part argued that water-boarding and other harsh interrogation methods “did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them.”
Cheney about enhanced interrogation:
“I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed,” Cheney said during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
“They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.”
Cheney noted that Obama has reserved enhanced interrogation unto himself:
This might explain why President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate. What value remains to that authority is debatable, given that the enemy now knows exactly what interrogation methods to train against, and which ones not to worry about. Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It’s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.
Missing words, addressed my Cheney:
President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” End quote. Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration – the missing 26 words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn’t change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
This is a curious administration – in love with America’s power and seizing it, while demeaning America before the world for Obama’s own aggrandizement as though morality began with his administration. Most countries on earth owe this country a debt of gratitude, which they can never repay; just as our citizens can never repay the men who defended this country with their limbs and lives. The Ivory Tower academic community organizer in the White House has yet to appreciate his country’s real history as told my the blood of it’s builders and martyrs.
More from:
Sam Stein in the Huffington Post : A Civil Libertarian rips Obama’s Speech: All Bells and Whistles
“Obviously, he is a very effective speaker, but of course we have major problems with what he is doing,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “He wraps himself in the Constitution, talks about American values and then proceeds to violate them.”
Allah Pundit, “In a fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground.”
There was an eerie stillness and silence across the Notre Dame campus as my colleagues, a few of the seniors and I walked across the campus very early on the morning of Commencement Day. It was the calm before the storm of what we knew was an historic day. I started with a national Fox News interview along with Fr. Richard McBrien. We were asked our views of the Commencement. My message was: Everyone can imagine people they would protest speaking at a commencement: an avowed racist, anti-Semite, or advocate of terrorism. So the failure to object to one who is unwilling to call for an end to abortion is the failure to see that abortion is as bad or worse than those other evils. We have to stop trivializing abortion. Moreover, the university gave the President an honorary law degree. Law exists to protect human rights; but this president has admitted that he doesn’t know when a child receives human rights. How can he defend human rights when he doesn’t know who has them? After speaking to various media, I greeted people on campus who were coming from all over the country to stand with the courageous students who boycotted their own commencement and invited me to lead them in an alternate ceremony. After I greeted and blessed the demonstrators who were at the campus entrance, and concelebrated a special Mass for Life, I led the Class of 2009 Vigil for Life. We meditated on the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, on the victory of life over death, and on the fact that Jesus is King over every nation, over the courts, the Congress, and the White House. As I gave the students and their families reflections on these truths, the current occupant of the White House was calling the graduates to have “open minds, open hearts” and a spirit of dialogue. Now dialogue with our opponents on this issue is something we at Priests for Life specialize in. I maintain friendships with abortion advocates and practicing abortionists. The clarity of our own convictions never means we despise, demonize, or shut out other people. And yes, we are willing to collaborate with others in morally legitimate ways to reduce the numbers of abortions. But the President’s remarks had a glaring omission. While willing to dialogue and to promote adoption, he gave no indication of any willingness to protect the children in the womb. And that’s the crux of the issue. In his remarks, he referred to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation. Certainly, his call for open minds does not include openness to reconsider the segregation issue. There’s a right answer to it, period. So it is with the protection of the unborn. And as quiet again descended on campus at the end of the day, I reflected… Open minds, yes, but for the purpose of eventually firmly closing upon the truth! And isn’t that supposed to be the purpose of Catholic universities?
Be Holy! 