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"You knew I was a rattlesnake when you picked me up"...<br>
<br>
The problem is not with the Obot.<br>
<br>
The problem is with the people.<br>
<br>
...love, honour, and obey...<br>
<br>
Some people see a demon behind every bush.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 05/28/13 3:25, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:E10A2F4C-1AB8-4AC3-9360-D805DD40E547@newsfromneptune.com"
type="cite">
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<div id="node-94816" class="node node-views_article clear-block"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">
<div class="node-header"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><span
class="submitted"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">Published
on Monday, May 27, 2013 by <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/27/obama-war-on-terror-speech"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">The
Guardian/UK</a></span>
<div class="node-title"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">
<h2 class="title"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1.1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,'Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Obama's
Terrorism Speech: Seeing What You Want To See</h2>
</div>
<h3 class="subtitle"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,'Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Some
eager-to-believe progressives heralded the speech as a momentous
change, but Obama's actions are often quite different than his rhetoric</h3>
<div class="author"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">by <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.commondreams.org/glenn-greenwald"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">Glenn
Greenwald</a></div>
</div>
<div class="node-content clear-block prose"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: 1.5em;">
<div class="node-body"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">
<div id="article-body-blocks"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">The
hallmark of a skilled politician is the ability to speak to a group of
people holding widely disparate views, and have all of them walk away
believing they heard what they wanted to hear. Other than Bill Clinton,
I've personally never seen a politician even in the same league as <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barack-obama"
title="More from guardian.co.uk on Barack Obama"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">Barack
Obama</a> when it comes to that ability. His most consequential
speeches are shaped by their simultaneous affirmation of conflicting
values and even antithetical beliefs, allowing listeners with
irreconcilable positions to conclude that Obama agrees with them.</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">The <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.npr.org/2013/05/23/186305171/transcript-obama-addresses-counterterrorism-drones"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">highly
touted speech</a> Obama delivered last week on US terrorism policy was
a master class in that technique. If one longed to hear that the end of
the "war on terror" is imminent, there are several good passages that
will be quite satisfactory. If one wanted to hear that the war will
continue indefinitely, perhaps even in expanded form, one could easily
have found that. And if one wanted to know that the president who has
spent almost five years killing people in multiple countries around the
world feels personal "anguish" and moral conflict as he does it,
because these issues are so very complicated, this speech will be like
a gourmet meal.</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><span
class="pullquote"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">No
matter how good it made some eager-to-believe progressives feel, it's
impossible rationally to assess Obama's future posture regarding the
war on terror, secrecy and civil liberties expect by his actions.</span></p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">But
whatever else is true, what should be beyond dispute at this point is
that Obama's speeches have very little to do with Obama's actions,
except to the extent that they often signal what he intends not to do.
How many times does Obama have to deliver a speech <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/07/obamas-fisa-shi/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">embracing
a set of values and polices</a>, only to watch as he <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/07/09/71584/obama-campaign-vow-of-public-debate.html"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">then
proceeds to do the opposite</a>, before one ceases to view his public
proclamations as predictive of his future choices? Speeches, especially
presidential ones, can be significant unto themselves in shaping public
perceptions and setting the terms of the debate, so Obama's explicit
discussion of the "ultimate" ending of the war on terror can be
reasonably viewed as positive.</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">But
it signals nothing about what he actually will do. I'm genuinely amazed
that there are still smart people who treat these speeches as though
they do. As Esquire's Tom Junod <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/obama-drone-speech-lethal-president?click=pp"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">put
it after the speech</a>: "if the Lethal Presidency reminds us of
anything, it's that we should be a long way from judging this president
on his rhetoric or his portrayal of himself as a moral actor." The
Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/a-skeptical-celebration-of-president-obamas-shifty-terrorism-speech/276205/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">added</a> that
Obama "has a long record of broken promises and misleading rhetoric on
civil liberties, and it would be naive to assume that he'll follow
through on everything he said on Thursday."</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">What
Obama has specialized in from the beginning of his presidency is
putting pretty packaging on ugly and discredited policies. The
cosmopolitan, intellectualized flavor of his advocacy makes coastal
elites and blue state progressives instinctively confident in the
Goodness of whatever he's selling, much as George W. Bush's swaggering,
evangelical cowboy routine did for red state conservatives. The <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.salon.com/2010/03/27/wikileaks/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">CIA
presciently recognized</a> this as a valuable asset back in 2008 when
they correctly predicted that Obama's election would <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/S630NRVFxjI/AAAAAAAACVo/N_SuBb3sr-I/s1600/cia2.png"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">stem
the tide</a> of growing antiwar sentiment in western Europe by becoming
the new, more attractive face of war, thereby converting hordes of his
admirers from war opponents into war supporters. This dynamic has
repeated itself over and over in other contexts, and has indeed been of
great value to the guardians of the status quo in placating growing
public discontent about their economic insecurity and increasing
unequal distribution of power and wealth. However bad things might be,
we at least have a benevolent, kind-hearted and very thoughtful leader
doing everything he can to fix it.</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">The
clear purpose of Obama's speech was to comfort progressives who are
growing increasingly uncomfortable with his extreme secrecy, wars on
press freedom, seemingly endless militarism and the like. For the most
part, their discomfort is far more about the image being created of the
politician they believed was unique and even transcendent than it is
any substantive opposition to his policies. No progressive wants to
believe that they placed such great trust and adoration in a political
figure who is increasingly being depicted as some sort of warped
progeny of Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney. That creates internal
discomfort and even shame. This speech was designed to allow
progressives once again to see Barack Obama as they have always wanted
to see him, his policies notwithstanding: as a deeply thoughtful,
moral, complex leader who is doing his level best, despite often
insurmountable obstacles, to bring about all those Good Things that
progressives thought they would be getting when they empowered him.</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">The
terrorism speech, when dissected, provided very little in the way of
actual concrete substance. Its most heralded passage, as <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-comment-presidents-national-security-speech"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">the
ACLU quickly pointed out</a>, did nothing more than call for the
"ultimate" repeal of the AUMF; "the time to take our country off the
global warpath and fully restore the rule of law is now," said the
ACLU's executive director Anthony Romero, "not at some indeterminate
future point." Moreover, he noted, "the president still claims broad
authority to carry out targeted killings far from any battlefield, and
there is still insufficient transparency."</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">In
lieu of substance, the speech was heavy on feel-good rhetoric, mostly
designed to signal that unlike the mean and simplistic George Bush -
who presumably pursued these policies thoughtlessly and simplistically
- Obama experiences inner turmoil and deep moral and intellectual
conflict as he pursues them. "For me, and those in my chain of command,
those [civilian] deaths will haunt us as long as we live," the
president claimed. He added that drones and other new weapons
technologies "raise[] profound questions — about who is targeted, and
why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new enemies;
about the legality of such strikes under US and international law;
about accountability and morality."</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">This
"he-struggles-so-very-much" conceit is one Obama officials have been
pushing for awhile, as when they <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">anonymous
boasted to the New York Times</a> about Obama's deep personal
involvement in choosing the targets of his "kill list", something he
insists upon because he is "a student of writings on war by Augustine
and Thomas Aquinas" and wants to ensure compliance with those lofty
principles. That same article quoted the supremely obsequious former
Obama adviser Harold Koh as hailing <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.salon.com/2008/11/16/brennan/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">torture</a> <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/01/07/the-right-or-wrong-experience-for-the-job/by-nominating-john-brennan-obama-is-ignoring-war-crimes"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">advocate</a> and <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/04/osama-bin-laden-killing-us-story-change"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">serial</a> <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.salon.com/2011/07/19/drones/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">deceiver</a> John
Brennan as "a person of genuine moral rectitude" who ensures that the
"kill list" is accompanied by moral struggle: "It's as though you had a
priest with extremely strong moral values who was suddenly charged with
leading a war," Koh said.</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">Obama
may do things you progressives find distasteful, but at least marvel at
how thoughtful and torn up he is about it all. The New York Times' Ross
Douthat had <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opinion/sunday/douthat-obamas-artful-anguish.html"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">quite
a good column</a>this week about this preening pageantry. He aptly
described the speech as "a dense thicket of self-justifying argument,
but its central message was perfectly clear: Please don't worry,
liberals. I'm not George W. Bush." Douthat explained:</p>
<blockquote
style="border: medium none ; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px 40px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: 19.5px; quotes: none; font-style: italic; background-position: 0px 0px;">
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">"This
willingness to grapple with moral complexity has always been one of the
things that Obama's admirers love about him, and even liberals who feel
disappointed with his national security record still seem grateful for
the change from George W. Bush. If we have to have an imperial
president, their attitude seems to be, better to have one who shows
some 'anguish over the difficult trade-offs that perpetual war poses to
a free society' (as The New Yorker's Jane Mayer <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/05/obama-speech-drones-closing-guantanamo.html"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">put
it</a> on Friday), rather than falling back on 'the secrecy and winking
smugness of the past'. . . . .</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">"I
am not particularly nostalgic for the Bush era either. But Obama's
Reinhold Niebuhr act comes with potential costs of its own. While the
last president exuded a cowboyish certainty, this president is
constantly examining his conscience in public — but if their policies
are basically the same, the latter is no less of a performance. And
there are ways in which it may be a more fundamentally dishonest one,
because it perpetually promises harmonies that can't be achieved and
policy shifts that won't actually be delivered.</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">"That's
a cynical reading on Obama's speech, but it feels like the right one.
Listened to or skimmed, the address seemed to promise real limits on
presidential power, a real horizon for the war on terror. But when
parsed carefully, it's not clear how much practical effect its promises
will have. . . .</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">"There
is no good reason to overpromise yet again. Where the United States can
step back from a wartime footing, we absolutely should. But where we
don't actually intend to, we should be forthright about it — rather
than pretending that change is perpetually just around the corner, and
behaving as though our choices are justified by how much anguish we
express while making them."</p>
</blockquote>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">When
it comes to liberals eager to be fooled, Douthat could easily have been
talking here about his own newspaper's editors. Within minutes after
the completion of Obama's speech, literally, the New York Times
editorial page posted <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/opinion/obama-vows-to-end-of-the-perpetual-war.html?pagewanted=all"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">a
lengthy and gushing editorial</a> headlined "The End of Perpetual War".
In their eyes, the speech was "the most important statement on
counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning
point in post-9/11 America." It analyzed the speech section-by-section
and insisted that each called for a "shift [that] is essential to
preserving the democratic system and rule of law for which the United
States is fighting, and for repairing its badly damaged global image."
It concluded: "There have been times when we wished we could hear the
right words from Mr. Obama on issues like these, and times we heard the
words but wondered about his commitment. This was not either of those
moments."</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">How
was the NYT able to post such a detailed and lengthy editorial about
Obama's speech almost immediately upon its conclusion? Clearly, they
were given a special preview of the speech by some administration
official, who fed them exactly the message the White House wanted them
to receive. And they ingested it fully. As one civil liberties lawyer
put it to me, the NYT editors got snookered not despite the special
access they received, but <em
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">because</em> of
it. Most of all, they got snookered because they wanted to, because - <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/what-mattered-in-obamas-speech-today-ending-the-open-ended-war-on-terror/276208/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">like
so many progressives</a>- they are eager to see Obama in the light in
which they originally saw him. Nobody likes to believe they were fooled
or tricked or so enthusiastically supported a politician who does
things they find horrible.</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">That's
why a mere speech, filled with all sorts of mixed messages, leads the
NYT editors to all but declare that Obama has heroically ended the war
on terror - even though just one week before, one of his top military
officials <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/17/endless-war-on-terror-obama"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">told
the US senate</a> that the war would last at least another decade or
two. After NYT Editorial board editor David Firestone <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://twitter.com/fstonenyt/status/337670091061747713"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">posted</a> the
NYT's editorial on Twitter and heralded the speech as "a momentous
turning point, making clear an unending state of war is unsustainable,"
I <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://twitter.com/fstonenyt/status/337672696206876672"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">asked
him</a>: "Will it be 'momentous' if it's not followed up with decisive
and prompt action?" His <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://twitter.com/fstonenyt/status/337672696206876672"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">reply</a>:
"Yes, I hope it doesn't turn out like universal pre-K or an
infrastructure bank. But at least he set the bar at the right height."</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">In
contrast to the NYT's instant swooning, serious journalists and
commentators - who weren't given special pre-speech access to a
marketing pitch by the White House - began analyzing the speech's
content and reached a much different conclusion. McClatchy's Leslie
Clark and Jonathan Landay <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/23/192081/obama-promises-anew-to-transfer.html"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">astutely
noted</a> that Obama's formulation for when drone strikes should be
used was <em
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">broader
than</em> past government statements, which meant he "appeared to be
laying groundwork for <em
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">an
expansion </em>of the controversial targeted killings".</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">The
Brookings Institution's Benjamin Wittes <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/05/the-presidents-speech-a-quick-and-dirty-reaction-part-1/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">similarly
observed</a> that Obama's speech seemed written to align the president
"as publicly as possible with the critics of the positions his
administration is taking without undermining his administration's
operational flexibility in actual fact." In other words, said Wittes
(summarizing the vintage Obama rhetorical device), "the president
sought to rebuke his own administration for taking the positions it has
— but also to make sure that it could continue to do so." Slate's
national security writer Fred Kaplan<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.therecord.com/opinion/columns/article/939051--obama-says-nothing-new-about-drones"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">observed</a> this
morning that "the speech heralded nothing new when it comes to drone
strikes." In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Jeremy Scahill <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-nations-jeremy-scahill-to-cnn-obama-terrorism-speech-a-rebranding-of-bush-era-policies/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">argued
this</a> about the Obama speech:</p>
<blockquote class="quoted"
style="border: medium none ; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px 40px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: 19.5px; quotes: none; font-style: italic; background-position: 0px 0px;">
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">[I]t
really is sort of just a rebranding of the Bush era policies with some
legalese that is very articulately delivered from our constitutional
law professor, Nobel Peace Prize-winning president. But effectively,
Obama has declared the world a battlefield and reserves the right to
drone bomb countries in pursuit of people against whom we have no
direct evidence or who we're not seeking any indictment against."</p>
</blockquote>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><br>
The national security reporter Michael Hastings <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/25/michael-hastings-obama_n_3336214.html"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">said
much the same thing</a> on MSNBC over the weekend ("That speech to me
was essentially agreeing with President Bush and Vice President Cheney
that we're in this neo-conservative paradigm, that we're at war with a
jihadist threat that actually is not a nuisance but the most important
threat we're facing today"), while Carnegie Mellon Professor Kiron
Skinner on the same show said that "there was a lot of George W. Bush
in that speech", as Obama spoke as though we are in a "long-term
ideological struggle in a way that he's not talked about radical Islam
before . .. where he's going will take him away from his liberal base."</p>
<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">Ultimately,
one can persuasively highlight passages in Obama's speech that support
any or all of these perspectives. That's what makes it such a classic
Obama speech. And that's the point: his speech had something for
everyone, which is another way of saying that it offered nothing
definitive or even reliable about future actions. No matter how good it
made some eager-to-believe progressives feel, it's impossible
rationally to assess Obama's future posture regarding the war on
terror, secrecy and civil liberties expect by his actions. Until one
sees actual changes in behavior and substance on those issues, cheering
for those changes as though they already occurred or are guaranteed is
the height of self-delusion.</p>
</div>
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2013 Guardian News and Media Limited</div>
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<div class="clearfix author-bio"
style="border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(231, 231, 231); margin: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 20px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">
<div class="author-brief-article"
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<p
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0pt 0pt 15pt; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; font-size: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;">Glenn
Greenwald is a columnist on civil liberties and US national security
issues for the Guardian. A former constitutional lawyer, he was until
2012 a contributing writer at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.salon.com/"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; background-position: 0px 0px;">Salon</a>.
His most recent book is, <strong
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805092056?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim"
target="_blank"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-position: 0px 0px;">With
Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality
and Protect the Powerful</a></strong>. His other books include: <strong
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><span
class="title"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307408663?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0307408663&linkCode=xm2&tag=commondreams-20"
target="_blank"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-position: 0px 0px;">Great
American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics</a></span></strong>, <strong
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class="title"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307354288?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0307354288&linkCode=xm2&tag=commondreams-20"
target="_blank"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-position: 0px 0px;">A
Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush
Presidency</a></span></strong>, and <span class="title"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><strong
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moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097794400X?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=097794400X&linkCode=xm2&tag=commondreams-20"
target="_blank"
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Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok</a></strong>. </span>He
is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent
Journalism.</p>
</div>
<div class="author-description"
style="border: 0px none ; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-color: -moz-use-text-color; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit;"><a
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Glenn Greenwald</a></div>
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printed from <strong
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