The End of the Obama Honeymoon, Part II
President Obama delivers a speech on national security at the National Archives in Washington, DC on May 21 (Alex Wong/Getty)
“There would be some prosecutions in criminal courts, he said, but wait a second, because he would also use military tribunals he had himself maligned. He wants to release some of the prisoners, as Bush had, and transfer others to countries that would accept them, as Bush did to great criticism.”Finally, there would be indefinite detention of some.
“Indefinite detention? But along with much of the above, doesn’t this fall short of the ‘restoration of values’ Obama promised, while bashing Bush as no president in memory has ever bashed a predecessor?”
The recent haggling over Guantanamo Bay is such classic Democratic Party politics, it almost makes you want to laugh. Almost, except that it’s, you know, revolting. Eight years of Clintonian squirming was bad enough, but now we have Barack Obama, smoking Habeas Corpus and not inhaling it.
Why is the Gitmo decision classic Democratic Party thinking? Because when certain of us said we wanted Gitmo closed, we sort of meant a change in policy – we didn’t mean just physically closing the plant, moving the prisoners elsewhere, and leaving the policies essentially unchanged. This is what this generation of Democrats does every time: every time they come to a fork in the road, they try to take it.
There’s always some sort of semantic twist involved with their policies, an asterisk, some kind of leprechaun trick to get around doing the simple right thing. They’re all for gay rights, and then once the lights come on, they’ve basically codified the closet by ushering in Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
They campaign against the war in Iraq, promise to get us out, and say they were against it all along — and then once they get in power, they start using words like eventually and in 4-6 years and once the situation stabilizes. Later it turns out that what they meant by being against the war all along was their conviction that we should have invaded on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday, or some such bullshit.
Now there’s this Gitmo business. This, folks, just isn’t that tough a call. The prison (and the much less publicized archipelago of hard sites in foreign countries where more terror suspects are held) was a symbol of everything wrong and stupid about the Bush administration. Snatching people up by force and dumping them in rocks on the middle of the ocean without due process is the kind of thing that was last done by “civilized” cultures back in the days of the Roman Empire; since then it’s been the exclusive province of sociopathic third-world dictators like Stalin and Mobutu Sese Seko. It was absolutely imperative, from a public relations standpoint if nothing else, that Obama immediately repudiate these practices, design some kind of due process to deal with the already incarcerated prisoners, and show the world that what happened during the Bush years was an insane aberration, a result of our having accidentally elected an emotionally retarded sadist to the White House.
Instead, Obama is on his way to doing exactly the wrong thing. He’s going to make a show of closing the base, but retain the underlying idea by keeping some of the prisoners in indefinite legal purgatory. In some ways this is worse than what Bush did, because Bush at least took a clear stand — he was nuts and thought this was the right thing to do. No matter how you look at Obama’s decision, it’s weighed somewhere along the line by political calculation. Either he thinks indefinite decision is right and he’s bowing to public appeals by closing the base, or else he thinks it’s wrong and is bowing to opposition outcry by maintaining the old policy.
It’s one thing to change your mind or play both sides of the fence on matters that don’t involve human lives, on theoretical/hypothetical campaign issues, but another thing to do it with actual incarcerated human beings as the key variable in the political equation.
I still like Obama, in a lot of ways. Having a president with less ability to inspire public confidence at a time like this, with our economy in such a death spiral, would be a disaster; God knows where we’d be right now with a McCain or a Mike Huckabee at the helm. But this guy has to show some stones somewhere along the line. He has to just forget the DC game and just take a clear stand on an issue like this sometime. He’s kind of running out of time to rescue his all-important first impression.
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Maybe he won’t hurry up and do the right thing because we’re still saying “honeymoon” and “first impression” 131 days into his first term. I thought he made his first impression with the stimulus package, we’re back from the honeymoon, we’ve got the new puppy, and now we’re living together and deciding where the furniture goes.
Or it could be that doing the right thing is harder than demanding the right thing. Unlike Chicago, the federal government has no provision for benevolent dictatorship. In his capacity as president he bears responsibility to the Constitution and the messy legal system that sprung from it. He has to navigate some fine print. Matt, you’ve given him a handy to-do list of easy moves on Guantanamo:
“It was absolutely imperative, from a public relations standpoint if nothing else, that:
1. Obama immediately repudiate these practices,
2. design some kind of due process to deal with the already incarcerated prisoners, and
3. show the world that what happened during the Bush years was an insane aberration, a result of our having accidentally elected an emotionally retarded sadist to the White House.
Numbers one and three sound great! But presidents don’t usually design kinds of due process, and he probably can’t design a kind of due process that isn’t vulnerable to the system of due process we already have. He has prisoners with no records, prisoners who were tortured, prisoners who can’t really be expected to love America when we drop them off back on the dusty street corner where we picked them up seven years ago. He has prisoners who will sue, prisoners who will appeal, prisoners who will attack.
Well, just design some kind of due process, Obama, and hurry up about it.
The problem you describe with Democrats is that they appeal to ideals but deal in reality. Personally I think we should send the prisoners to a certain ranch in Crawford, Texas until that cowboy figure out how to clean up his own mess. Legally.
Guantanamo just might have to extend beyond the honeymoon.
Matt,
I don’t want to defend Obama’s indefensible policies inherited by a prior administration out to offend. However, I think may commentators may be missing what I believe to be Obama’s game.
- He wants to close Guantanamo and end the torture policy. We know this because he said so.
- He wants a single payer government run health care system. We know this because he said so.
- He wants to implement various other liberal polices, such as low cost education, funding public transit, a carbon cap-and-trade (or other so-called “green” incentiveized tax system). We know this because he said so.
Yet he has done none of these things. A pessimist would argue that these were campaign promises to be tossed as soon as he won elected office. But I don’t think that’s his game at all. I think he’s pushing *against* liberals in order to cause an uprising among liberal activists.
He wants cover. He wants to be *forced* into implementing all those policies he said he likes, by a groundswell of citizen activism. Then he can tell the Republicans and moderates, “Gee, I really tried to keep the wars, torture policy, and all that other stuff going. But you see all that rabble? What am I to do? Here, have a cookie and some milk to drown your sorrows in.”
Or perhaps I’m wrong. In which case, fuck all these political parties and the bullshit they espouse.
[...] a comment » Reading through a new post by the astute Matt Taibbi (he of Rolling Stone and formerly my fav Russian rag, The eXile), I was [...]
When I was considering my vote, it seemed pretty clear to me that Barack Obama was likely to hold the same values as I do. Now, it seems that the Obama administration thinks it can have it both ways. Not so. Either the Guantanamo prisoners are guilty of a crime or they are not. Either we are at war and therefore can take warriors prisoners or we are not. What are all these ifs and buts about? If this continues, can it be long before we imprison dissenters, and parents wail in front of US embassies–and the WH–with photos of their disappeared sons daughters husbands and wives? Is that what we want? Well, that may be a bit hyperbolic. But I’m no Joan of Arc. I’m not even a Norma Rae. I don’t know what to do about this. Collectively, though, couldn’t we be brave enough strong enough to stand by our beliefs and resist this “compromise”? More importantly, shouldn’t we?
Couldn’t agree more matt, the whole point of changing the policy and shutting down guantanamo was because prisoners were being held indefinitely without charges or any due process. So long as one of those prisoners is denied their rights we have betrayed the moral standard that brought about the change.
During election season a number of British acquaintances from the left side of the spectrum warned that Obama was a reprise of Tony Blair, an agent of make believe change, who, in your words, could always invoke a “semantic twist… an asterisk, some kind of leprechaun trick to get around doing the simple right thing.”
I do not follow politics closely enough to say whether or not this comparison is perfect but it does bear noting that by the time he was done, Blair left behind a weaker, more confused, and less certain left.
[...] Matt Taibbi succinctly summarizes what is wrong with the Democrats. Why is the Gitmo decision classic Democratic Party thinking? Because when certain of us said we wanted Gitmo closed, we sort of meant a change in policy – we didn’t mean just physically closing the plant, moving the prisoners elsewhere, and leaving the policies essentially unchanged. This is what this generation of Democrats does every time: every time they come to a fork in the road, they try to take it. [...]
I can’t put it better than Tom Tomorrow:
“We voted for a centrist technocrat, who campaigned as a centrist technocrat, and who promised to govern as a centrist technocrat — and now the true believers are shocked to find a centrist technocrat in the Oval Office. “
Unbelievable… Blah, blah, blah!
Talk and take a hard line, just as you accuse the President of doing when he wasn’t the President, and then just like back in the Clinton days when supporters and specifically the feminists groups said bubkus over a little girl being taken advantage (yes, yes, she was old enough to smoke cigars, I get it, mutual consent, but…) of by the most POWERFUL man in the world (right, I get it, just sex…) you let him off the hook with “I still like Obama, in a lot of ways. But… Blah, blah, blah a death spiral… He better do something soon, blah blah blah…”
Please!
You see, in the case you talk about I have little problem with the President doing what he needs to do (—he brings the Gitmo “detainees” here—I have a big problem!) this is where we disagree.
You and the President are both realizing that it’s one thing to criticize and promise, it’s another thing to be in the position, weigh the consequences, and make a decision…
—iChef
[...] Matt Taibbi on Obama’s failure to live up to earlier promises to close Guantanamo with his continuation of the Bush policies of rendition and imprisonment without due process in spite of having repeatedly stated his intention to stop those practices. [...]
[...] via Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – The End of the Obama Honeymoon, Part II – True/Slant. [...]
You’re a beautiful idealist, Matt. But this is such a dirty world.
I wish I had the solution. So let’s say we begin trials or tribunals, and Allah al-Allah is not guilty and is freed. But he’s so bitter and jaded and hateful for what we’ve done to him that he actually says, well, FUCK YOU, AMERICA! then volunteers to unleash a dirty bomb in Dallas, or at an American consulate in Dubai.
That’s the dirty what-if should Obama do what he said should be done with these accused terrorists.
I honestly believe that the sweeping policy reforms that are so easy to see from my computer chair get a lot greasier, grimier and squickier the more advisors you have.
All the editorial pages in the country are aimed at your actions, you have two houses of the legislature trying to cut funding for your projects and stonewall you to get reelected. At the same time, you lead a country that has had eight seasons of “Dancing with the Stars”. Obama probably got bogged down at some point, and if he’s “unilateral” (aka clearheadedly progressive) on Gitmo, he’ll lose steam for Universal Healthcare and banking reform.
[...] left now about the Obama Administration’s various failures in the area of civil liberties. As Taibbi put it a few days ago, “When [we] said we wanted Gitmo closed, we sort of meant a change in policy–we [...]
Let’s see who I should think is correct on this… hmmmm … a columnist with no political experience, who has a tiny fraction of all the information, who doesn’t have to deal with — or even think through — all the ramifications of the decisions he is proposing or should I have faith in the President — that he knows what he’s doing.
We voted for the guy and I think patience is definitely still in order.
Dealing with what to do with extremely dangerous combatants, in a just and fair way, after the previous administration, is just about the most complicated thing imaginable.
Let’s say you have someone you know is extremely dangerous, but the evidence isn’t any good — let’s say it was obtained illegally. What do you propose Matt?
Are you really saying we should let them go, maybe let Khalid Sheik Mohammed free?
[...] Barack Obama: Master Flip-Flopper. Obama’s change: Replace a Republican with a Democrat who will institute Republican policies. That’s change we needed — not. And Matt Taibbi is getting pissed too. [...]
No wonder they’re in such a panic about Islamic Sharia. These guys make it seem so appealing.