Change That Matters
Appears increasingly to be occurring within Obama policy positions. Roundup on shifting “change” goalposts starts with Hot Air, reporting on indicators that even as the incoming Obamists struggle with that thorny Guantanamo issue, they are looking at the idea of leaving CIA’s interrogation options open.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a “current government official familiar with the transition,” reported this week that “Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.”
… Forcing the CIA to adhere to the AFM (Army field manual on interrogation) would have done much more than forbid waterboarding, which the CIA stopped using in 2003 anyway. It went as far as blocking the CIA from using barking dogs to intimidate detainees, as just one example of a number of methods. As I wrote in February, if you could save one life by having a dog bark at a detainee, would you do it? For Pete’s sake, who wouldn’t? …
If Obama now agrees with McCain on this issue, that’s an improvement — but will the press treat Obama like they treated McCain? Will they start talking about him as though he was the reincarnation of the Marquis de Sade and Vidkun Quisling rolled up into one person? The MoveOn/Code Pink fringe certainly will, especially after his reversal on FISA reform this summer, on which the media largely gave him a pass
More Hot Air: Backward on detention, too?
“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration.
You can’t? That’s all we’ve heard from the close-Gitmo crowd for the last seven years. Indefinite detention supposedly violates American values, we’re losing the war if we adapt to the threat against us, blah blah blah …
Now that Obama has to live with these decisions and not simply snipe from the sidelines, the game appears to have changed.
If change keeps mattering like this, you have to ask yourself whether maybe the change that would have mattered most would have been to just amend the constitution and let George Bush be prez again …
Ignatius, with a post-modern neoconism for Obama: Lose the rhetoric, keep the war. Put another way, re-brand the GWOT: Lie, so jihadis will still die.
Baker at NYT, Whose president is he? Notes that change lately looks a lot like Back to a Clinton Future. That’s before you get to re-branded Bush war policies. Includes Obama’s description of himself as a Rorschach’s test … in which people see what their own psychoses want them to see, I guess. Looking more like a shapeshifter lately.
The selection of Mr. Emanuel and other veterans of President Bill Clinton’s administration to run the transition stood in contrast to Mr. Obama’s message about finally moving beyond the Clinton era. All the more striking was his decision last week to sound out Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton herself as a possible secretary of state. The Clinton faction is pleased, but those who saw Mr. Obama as a clean break may wonder what it means.
Similarly, many inside the Beltway sat up and paid attention when Mr. Obama, through a spokeswoman, said he did not hold any grudges against Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who calls himself an independent Democrat but barnstormed for Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee. Mr. Obama said he would not get involved in deciding whether Mr. Lieberman should keep his committee chairmanship and would welcome his staying in the Democratic caucus.
Republicans and some Democrats were relieved at what they viewed as an act of statesmanship, but some liberals intent on punishing Mr. Lieberman for his heresy were disappointed.
It’s starting to look like change didn’t matter that much after all. Though when someone lacks the strength of his own convictions this much … whatever those convictions actually may be … you have to wonder what change is yet to come.
Broder: Trending Away From the GOP. Posits a major shift to center-left in the American electorate, though that argument relies on the assumption that the election was something other than a panic-fueled popularity contest, where the strongest argument for Obama was that he had a presidential demeanor. Steady hand at the helm. Meanwhile, on foreign policy, the Kumbayahist-in-Chief appears to be preparing to come about, on a Bushward tack. So which way is he going to veer on tax and social policy?
While Reynolds notes the irony of Obama’s Clintonism, Riehl looks for a bright side:
At least Obama seems to appreciate his lack of experience in Washington and on the serious side of the International stage. He has no “Obama” people. He wasn’t in DC long enough. While I may not like the players when it comes to their politics, given my real concern over Obama’s lack of credentials for the Oval Office, I prefer seeing this, as opposed to a bunch of fresh faces with the same, or even less experience than Obama.
Yeah, because it worked so well last time. Anyway, it’s starting to look like Obama’s secret shape-shifting superpower is to adopt the form of his enemies. I’m waiting for the Obama Bushite appointments. As long as he’s flirting with their policies, why keep messing around?
Gateway on some old geezers whose anti-war protest demanding war crimes tribunals for Bush and Cheney lost the strength of its convictions when it started raining. Hey, if Obama continues the Bush-Cheneyite policies, does he get charged with war crimes, too?
Maybe his strategy is to confuse his adversaries. So much for the Rahm Emanuel pro-Israel signal, here’s Gateway on Obama’s vision for a rump Israel.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:10 am on Sunday, November 16, 2008
2 Responses to “Change That Matters”
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November 16th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
It is becoming increasingly clear that the messiah is having several “Holy S**t!” moments as he is given access to more and more information about a variety of issues. He probably will spend his entire term muddling through. For our sake, I hope that he continues to muddle through as Bush Lite, but that might be too much to hope for.
November 16th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Israel would be well within its rights to tell Obama to go to hell for that idiotic proposal.