The Big Obama Administration Thread

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I am no scholar of American history but from what I know the Republicans seems to have been pretty much like they are now for the last 40 years or at least since Nixon. I know Reagan is an icon but he was embroiled in loads of scandals like Iran - Contra but somehow managed to shrug it off and is in my book no better than Bush. Didn't he wreck the economy as well? Not to mention how close he brought the world to nuclear annihilation, he gambled with the world and won and for that he is cherished but he might as well have lost the gamble and then we would not be having this discussion. Now I am no big fan of the Democratic party and would not vote for them if an equivalent party ever ran in Sweden (if I ever get to vote in the US I would probably vote for them due to them being the lesser of the two evils) I find them way too both conservative (in the classical sense of the word not the American sense) and too liberal (again in the classical sense of the word).

My point being, have the Republicans really strayed that far? Have they not always (or at least the last 50 years) been the party of nationalistic chauvinism, the bad kind of traditional values and transporting money from the people to big business?

 

Since LBJ, really. More precisely, ever since the most bigoted elements of the Democratic Party switched party affiliation. That's when the GOP we all know and hate really started to come into its own.

 

Though I have tended to support Obama throughout his campaign and in his presidency thus far, I have found something that I disagree with. He has stated that he now does not want to release pictures of detainee abuse that he had previously decided would be declassified by the end of the month, citing a backlash from the Muslim world.

If you want to move forward, you've got to acknowledge the past. If we do not take responsibility of past incidents of detainee abuse, and accountability is totally ignored, there is nothing to prevent Obama, or some future president, from doing the exact same thing again.

EDIT: T2 - that article is bogus - the Hottest Woman as rated by that list is Olivia Wilde (the young woman on the TV series "House"). She's attractive, but by no means the Hottest Woman in the World by any measure.

 

Not to trivialize your comment Aldeth, but some important news just came on Yahoo....

Michelle Obama made Maxim's Top 100 'Hottest Women in the World' list.

I actually agree with Obama on not releasing those pictures -- I believe he has made it clear we (the US) are responsible for the abuse, but there is no need to further feed the flames by releasing the pictures. Releasing the pictures will not reduce the chances of such abuse happening in the future.

 

Did you guys see that talk to the press informal meeting thing he did? It was actually quite funny. Obama makes a passable comedian.

 

I would say that his decision to not release the photos is a good one. Everyone knows that what happened was bad, and he has taken steps to stop the problem from continuing under his administration. As he has done so admirably before, he now wishes to move forward and build something good rather than dwell on the past.

I hear what you are saying, Aldeth, but I do not think that releasing the photos is a prerequisite for future progress. It would be mere partisan showmanship, and Obama appears to be trying to move past that and into a slightly more collegial working relationship with his political opponents.

He's got me sold! I don't usually like Democrats but Obama is doing a pretty blasted good job under the circumstances -- IMHO, anyhow.

 

I don't know if I would characterize releasing those pictures "mere partisan showmanship", but I feel sympathetic to both sides of this argument. Obama had a tough call to make, here, since government transparency has always been the largest plank of his platform, and I must confess that I'm not sure where I stand on this decision.

In my personal opinion, both options sucked about equally. Either he releases the photos and looks bad for further humiliating the victims -- and upsetting the Muslim world all over again -- or he doesn't release the photos and looks bad for being less than transparent. He's SOL either way, and someone is going to be pissed.

 

IMO, it means that Obama does not want to prosecute Cheney and his minions for committing war crimes, which is really too bad. If he released the pictures and followed up with holding Cheney accountable, it would restore our image in the world at large as a country that stands for the Rule of Law. Nothing would help us more than the image of Cheney being taken away in handcuffs.

But it probably won't happen, unless the conservative talking heads don't shut up and stop pushing to have an investigation of what Namcy knew about the torture. If the Republicans keep harping on Pelosi, the JD and Congress will have to hold hearings into who did what, and who knew what and when they knew it. In that case Cheney will go down, and he will take his old boss with him if he does - Count on it.

 

I can agree with that. However, just because both choices sucked, doesn't answer completely why he switched his position on this. Less than a month ago, he stated the pictures would be released, and then a couple of days ago, he said they wouldn't be. What information became available to him in that month that caused him to change his mind? It's not like our relationship with the Muslim world was spectacular a month ago, and they wouldn't be pissed had we released the pictures then.

All I'm pointing out is the reasons Obama listed for not releasing the photos were just as well known a month ago when he said he would release the photos. Obama is a smart guy, and he wouldn't turn 180 degrees on this issue (and open the door for the inevitable flip-flop jokes) unless something he did not anticipate happened. And I'm just wondering what that something was... Which brings us to Chandos' post.

The one major thing that has happened in the past month is that Dick Cheney has gone on his "Torture is OK, and I'd Do It Again" tour. Are there any news programs of any network other than MSNBC that he has not appeared on? Obama probably did not anticipate that (I know I didn't). The other thing that Obama probably did not anticipate is during these interviews, Cheney is practically begging Obama to open up a criminal investigation (of which Cheney, himself, would be the primary target) or assign a special prosecutor to this case.

Is it possible that Obama may be open to prosecution of war crimes, and wants to withhold evidence from being made public until the time of the trial? Or maybe there's something else that I'm unaware of. I'm just saying that this kind of mistake (an obvious switch of positions) is just the kind of mistake that Obama's administration does not make, so I have to think something that's not immediately obvious is up.

 

IMO, Obama, nor anyone in his adminstration, would be dumb enough to bring war crime charges against any prior administration. It would just make the US lose more face, if possible, to the rest of the world. Nothing good would come of it. The arguement of whether or not torture is an acceptable practice to stop terrorism will go on for a long time i think, to no avail. If Dems are in control, it will be stopped. If Reps are in control, it will be used. Just more of the same old, same old...

Bush/Cheney did what they did at the time because they thought it was needed to help protect our country from Terrorism. If proof comes alight showing that torture did gives the US intel that proved vital to the protection of the US, would the Dems be up in arms over it? I doubt it. But, times change and so will our policies, depending upon the view or pulse from our citizens and the view of the outside world.

Also, i feel Obama knows that to do so, it would create an even wider rift between the Dems and Reps and make it alot harder for his administration to get anything achieved. All presidents need some support of the moderate types of the opposition party to get things passed. The more in-fighting our Federal Government does, the lesser our country becomes. The spending alone on these types of investigations is ridiculous, when the money could be used for better causes.

 

It's very simple, the obama administration does not want to go there(prosecuting for torture) because top democrats knew about it & would get dragged in & charged with the same crimes.
You don't think Pelosi and others don't want this to just go away?

 

If Pelosi want this to go away, then I totally do not understand her strategy here. If anything, her statements of yesterday and today - that the CIA lied and misrepresented facts of enhanced interrogation techniques to Congress - represent an escalation of the issue. They certainly don't indicate trying to push things under the rug.

If self-preservation is an instinct that Pelosi possesses and her goal is to make all of this go away, then why start making these accusations? If these accusations are true, then they would almost necessitate further investigation, and then even more information will come out. While I don't always agree with Pelosi, she must be sentient enough to realize this. If a coverup was the desired result, her actions are counterproductive to that end.

 

pelosi-admits-waterboard-briefing

We never, EVER, said she was smart(it's not required since she is a democrat).

Very different than when she said

 

Pelosi's was resposnding to the accusation that she knew about it. By pushing it off on the the CIA misrepresenting the facts is not escalating the issue, just steering it in another direction, away from her. I don't think she can sweep it under the rug, that job is for the House & Senate.

 

How can dragging the entire CIA organization into this not be constued as anything but an escalation?

/does a quick internet search/

At least that's exactly how some major news sources are characterizing Pelosi's actions:

In martaug's opinion, it definitely qualifies as the latter - which I will concede may be true. She very well have made a very rash decision, in which case she's a moron. If she's right, and her initial statement was in error about being briefed was incorrect, then this is big news. All breifings have official transcripts, and at the end of the transcripts there is an attendee list that is signed by all those that attend the meeting. This shouldn't be hard to prove one way or another. If she attended a meeting where waterboarding was breifed, her name and signature should be attached to the briefing.

And in the interest of full disclosure:Here's the story I took the quote from.

 

Pelosi definitely upped the ante on this one. She wants the hearings, because she despises Cheney so much. Outside of the conservative media, she has not committed ANY crime whatsoever. But guess who did? That would be Dick and George. And since Cheney already threw GWB under the bus, it will be interesting to see if Bush can be convicted of a crime. Cheney - no doubt.

Pelosi only looks bad politically in all this. Big deal. But IF she broke the law, everyone else in the briefing room did as well. I believe she wants to put Cheney's big butt in jail, but Obama does not want to go there. This summer is supposed to be the fight over healthcare. Instead, we have have the "drama" of hearings on TV and Cheney on trial. That would delay healthcare, probably till next year.

 

Well, that article goes on to say, Quote " The speaker's discomfort was evident yesterday as she was grilled by reporters for the first time since the CIA issued information suggesting that she and others were told about the use of the techniques, including waterboarding, at a classified briefing on Sept. 4, 2002."

That tells me she didn't drag the CIA into it, they drug her into it, by trying to pass the buck to stop inquiries into their actions. I'm not saying she is innocent, i highly doubt it, but she isn't the instigator here, but one who is defending herself from possible future ties to prosecution.

 

Given that popular pressure is essentially forcing Obama's justice department to investigate, I would consider this very likely.

 

What crime is she guilty of?

 

I wouldn't put this one on the Obama administration, first of all. He's shown several times already that he's all too willing to break with party orthodoxy. Second, the torture was conducted under executive order, with legal justification being provided by the justice department. The legislature never authorized or ordered that torture be conducted, so even if some members of the legislature did know about it, those individuals would be in little legal jeopardy.

EDIT: Yeah, what Chandos said, more or less.