Emote Less; Think More

The difference between a reasonable liberal and reasonable conservative is that a reasonable liberal leans a bit one way, whereas a reasonable conservative leans a bit the other way. By the time relatively minor policy differences bubble up to the superficial coverage provided by the mainstream media, they become greatly magnified and seem vastly more consequential than they really are. Setting aside a few hot button issues where compromise can be hard to find (e.g., abortion), the battle is fought between the 40 yard lines (as Charles Krauthammer once put it), not from one end-zone to the other. But that's not how it seems when people get politically hysterical, which they often do. Nowhere was this more apparent than when people were angrily accusing George Bush of "trampling on the Constitution" with his "imperial presidency."

If you really believed that the last election was about fundamental change -- as opposed to a fairly reasonable liberal moving the line a tad farther to the left -- then you should really take a tour through the many ways in which Obama is just like Bush. And when you do, you should think about what it means for your own proclivity to descend into spasms of anger and hysteria over George Bush's national security policies. There is a lesson in the stories summarized below, and the lesson is that no matter how smart you think you are, if you were beside yourself with anger as you watched George Bush trample on the Constitution over the last 8 years, then you are a relatively superficial thinker when it comes to politics. You don't think so? Then look at how Obama is behaving, and take it as an invitation to emote less and think more:

1. Rendition:

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool

The role of the CIA's controversial prisoner-transfer program may expand, intelligence experts say.

By Greg Miller
February 1, 2009
...
Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
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The European Parliament condemned renditions as "an illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a Boeing Co. subsidiary accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.
...
The decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human rights groups. Leaders of such organizations attribute that to a sense that nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured -- but that designing that system is going to take some time."

2. Indefinite detention:

MAY 14, 2009

Obama Considers Detaining Terror Suspects Indefinitely

By EVAN PEREZ

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil -- indefinitely and without trial -- as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The proposal being floated with members of Congress is another indication of President Barack Obama's struggles to establish his counter-terrorism policies, balancing security concerns against attempts to alter Bush-administration practices he has harshly criticized.
...
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, at a hearing last month, hinted at the administration's deliberations, saying that there were "50 to 100 [detainees] probably in that ballpark who we cannot release and cannot trust, either in Article 3 [civilian] courts or military commissions."

3. Military tribunals:

Obama to Revamp Military Tribunals

Stance Is Reversal on Trials for Detainees

By Michael D. Shear and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 16, 2009

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama offered himself as a clear alternative to Bush-era anti-terrorism policies. Governing has proven muddier.

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he will revamp, rather than reject, the system of military tribunals that President George W. Bush created to try terrorism suspects. Earlier in the week, Obama indicated that he will fight the release of photos depicting alleged abuse of detainees during Bush's tenure.

The reaction has been fierce. The American Civil Liberties Union accused the president of "stonewalling tactics and opaque policies" after the photo decision. And yesterday, the group threw Obama's words from the campaign back at him: "You can't put lipstick on a pig," it said of his efforts to revamp the commissions. Human rights groups vowed to fight Obama in court.
...
Yesterday's announcement was a unmistakable reversal for a man who, as a candidate, had promised to shelve the military commissions and called their use under Bush an "enormous failure."

4. Warrantless wiretapping:

MARCH 6, 2009, 10:37 P.M. ET

Obama Channels Cheney

Obama adopts Bush view on the powers of the presidency.

The Obama Administration this week released its predecessor's post-9/11 legal memoranda in the name of "transparency," producing another round of feel-good Bush criticism. Anyone interested in President Obama's actual executive-power policies, however, should look at his position on warrantless wiretapping. Dick Cheney must be smiling.
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The Obama Justice Department has adopted a legal stance identical to, if not more aggressive than, the Bush version. It argues that the court-forced disclosure of the surveillance programs would cause "exceptional harm to national security" by exposing intelligence sources and methods. Last Friday the Ninth Circuit denied the latest emergency motion to dismiss, again kicking matters back to Judge Walker.

More on this topic from back in 2008, while Obama was still on the campaign trail:

Fri July 11, 2008

Obama's surveillance vote spurs blogging backlash

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama's vote for a federal surveillance law that he had previously opposed has sparked a backlash from his online advocates, who had energized his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
...
In October, Obama had vowed to help filibuster an update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that gave telecommunication companies that had cooperated with President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program immunity from lawsuits.

After 9/11, Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop, without the mandated warrant from a federal court, on electronic communication involving terrorist suspects.

Critics said Bush's Terrorist Surveillance Program was a violation of civil liberties.

The Senate voted Wednesday on the bill updating FISA -- which had a provision to shield telecommunications companies that had cooperated in the surveillance. Obama joined the 68 other senators who voted to send the bill to the president's desk.
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Bush signed the bill into law on Thursday, saying the bill "will help us meet our most solemn responsibility: to stop another attack."

5. Pakistan:

January 23, 2009

President Obama 'orders Pakistan drone attacks

Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.
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The operations were stepped up last year after frustration inside the Bush administration over a perceived failure by Islamabad to stem the flow of Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters from the tribal regions into Afghanistan.

6. Iraq:

Surge 'Suceeded Beyond Our Wildest Dreams,' Obama Now Says

Friday, September 05, 2008
By Susan Jones, Senior Editor

The troop surge in Iraq has “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” Sen. Barack Obama conceded in an interview with Bill O'Reilly that aired on the Fox News Channel Thursday night.

Obama not only opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, he also opposed the troop surge and predicted it would not work. Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, was a strong supporter of the troop surge.

More on this topic here:

Backers take Obama to task on troop surge

Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, February 27, 2009

A great majority of Americans approve of President Obama's early performance in office, but some of his staunchest supporters on the left are criticizing his troop surge proposal for Afghanistan and the withdrawal plan for Iraq that he's set to announce today at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
...
Obama is expected to announce a 19-month withdrawal Iraq plan today that would leave behind as many as 50,000 of the 142,000 troops currently there, even after August 2010. On the campaign trail, Obama promised that troops would be out of Iraq in 16 months, but compromised after his military commanders suggested a 23-month timetable.
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Soon after Obama's Iraq plan leaked, he began getting objections from the left. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she didn't see any justification for 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq. Usually supportive MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow said this week that Obama's plan "looks very much more like a Bush plan than it did like a Barack Obama-the-campaigner plan."

7. Afghanistan:

Antiwar groups want Obama to forget pledge

By Michael Drost (Contact) | Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The antiwar left blasted former President George W. Bush for "lying" about the war in Iraq — "Bush lied, people died" — but now some feel betrayed that President Obama is keeping his word about Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama on Wednesday announced the deployment of 17,000 troops to Afghanistan in keeping with his position as a candidate that the United States needs to redouble its efforts there.

Many antiwar activists, including some who supported Mr. Obama, were angered by the move, with some saying they had hoped his war stance was "just campaign talk."

With all of that in mind, the editors of the Washington Post pretty much nail it:

Mr. Obama's War?

No. Like it or not, it's America's war.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S clashes with the liberal base of his party are the kind of sporting event that Washington loves. But what Mr. Obama is confronting is less his party and more a stubborn reality that many in his party are unwilling to accept: There are forces in the world that continue to wage war against the United States and its allies, whether or not the United States wants to acknowledge that war.

Mr. Obama's recent decisions on paying for Afghanistan, reviving military tribunals and withholding photos of detainee abuse, among others, all reflect this reality...His announcement Friday that he had reversed his opposition to trying some enemy detainees in military commissions reflects, again, the fact of a nation at war; the federal courts will not be the proper venue for every al-Qaeda member captured by U.S. forces...His commitment to fighting al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan recognizes that pretending a threat does not exist will only increase the danger to America.

And finally, if you are an anti-war enthusiast, you might have thought you won a momentous battle when you helped to get Obama elected, but it seems somehow poetic that you now find yourself in this place:

May 17, 2009
Anti-War Voices Lose Influence
By Salena Zito

Will the last activist who hopes the antiwar cause will re-emerge as a central tenet of the Democratic Party please turn out the lights on the way out the door?

Little evidence exists that any antiwar movement is alive, well and influencing policy in this country.

Certainly no voice for it is coming from Barack Obama's White House. In fact, Obama has been pretty consistent in jerking-around antiwar crusaders, beginning with last summer's vote as a U.S. senator for a federal surveillance law and its provision shielding telecommunications companies that cooperated in warrantless wiretaps - a law he previously opposed.
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While President Obama gingerly takes ownership of the war in Afghanistan - pumping up troop levels, hand-picking his own commander, adding Pakistan as part of the solution and the problem - he is disowning antiwar activists who voted for him, expecting him to put an end all wars.

If you are a marginalized anti-war activist, take your cue from Barack Obama -- emote less and think more.