Obama's speech this morning,
like most Obama speeches, made pretty points in rhetorically effective
ways about the Constitution, our values, transparency, oversight, the
state secrets privilege, and the rule of law. But his actions, in many
critical cases, have repeatedly run afoul of those words. And while
his well-crafted speech can have a positive impact on our debate and
contained some welcome and rare arguments from a high-level political
leader -- changes in the terms of the debate are prerequisites to
changes in policy and the value of rhetoric shouldn't be understated --
they're still just words until his actions become consistent with them.
Worse, Obama repeatedly invoked the paradigm of The War on Terror to justify some extreme policies -- see my post of earlier today
on this practice -- beginning with his rather startling declaration
that he will work to create a system of "preventive detention" for
accused Terrorists without a trial, in order to keep locked up
indefinitely people who, in his words, "cannot be prosecuted
yet who pose a clear danger to the American people." In other words,
even as he paid repeated homage to "our values" and "our timeless
ideals," he demanded the power (albeit with unspecified judicial and
Congressional oversight) to keep people in prison with no charges or
proof of any crime having been committed, all while emphasizing that
this "war" will continue for at least ten years. Compare the power of
indefinite, "preventive" detention he's seeking to this:
"I
consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man,
by which a government can be held to the principles of its
constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789. ME 7:408, Papers 15:269.
Executive
imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since John, at
Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed,
outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of
the land." Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 533 (1953) (Jackson, J.) (conc. op.).
Similarly,
he simultaneously paid homage to "rule of law" while demanding that
there be no investigations or accountability for those who repeatedly
broke the law.
The speech was fairly representative of what
Obama typically does: effectively defend some important ideals in a
uniquely persuasive way and advocating some policies that promote those
ideals (closing Guantanamo, banning torture tactics, limiting the state
secrets privilege) while committing to many which plainly violate
them (indefinite preventive detention schemes, military commissions,
denial of habeas rights to Bagram abductees, concealing torture
evidence, blocking judicial review on secrecy grounds). Like all
political officials, Obama should be judged based on his actions and
decisions, not his words and alleged intentions and motives. Those
actions in the civil liberties realm, with some exceptions, have been
profoundly at odds with his claimed principles, and this speech hasn't
changed that. Only actions will.
UPDATE:
Immediately reacting to speeches of this type, as I've done here, is
always a perilous undertaking, since it generally helps to be able to
reflect on what one has heard. It ought to be apparent that my
reaction to Obama's speech was fairly mixed. There were some very
well-delivered and well-argued parts -- ones that were important. And
one sees the potency of the bipartisan political opposition -- and the
vindictive conniving from some of Washington's permanent power centers
in the intelligence and military community -- triggered by even by the
mildest of changes, such as the closing of Guantanamo and the release
of the OLC memos. Challenging that opposition, even rhetorically,
entails political costs and deserves some credit. But I'm always going
to assess Obama based on what he does, not on what he says.
Ultimately, what I find most harmful about his embrace of things like preventive detention,
concealment of torture evidence, opposition to investigations and the
like is that these policies are now no longer just right-wing dogma but
also the ideas that many defenders of his -- Democrats, liberals,
progressives -- will defend as well. Even if it's due to perceived
political necessity, the more Obama embraces core Bush terrorism
policies and assumptions -- we're fighting a "war on terror";
Presidents have the power to indefinitely and "preventatively" imprison
people with no charges; we can create new due-process-abridging
tribunals when it suits us; the "Battlefield" is everywhere; we should
conceal evidence when it will make us look bad -- the more those
premises are transformed from right-wing dogma into the prongs of
bipartisan consensus, no longer just advocated by Bush followers but by
many Obama defenders as well. The fact that it's all wrapped up in
eloquent rhetoric about the rule of law, our Constitution and our
"timeless values" -- and the fact that his understanding of those
values is more evident than his predecessor's -- only heightens the
concern.
So now, we're going to have huge numbers of people who
spent the last eight years vehemently opposing such ideas running
around arguing that we're waging a War against Terrorism, a "War
President" must have the power to indefinitely lock
people away who allegedly pose a "threat to Americans" but haven't
violated any laws, our normal court system can't be trusted to decide
who is guilty, Terrorists don't deserve the same rights as Americans,
the primary obligation of the President is to "keep us safe," and --
most of all -- anyone who objects to or disagrees with any of that is a
leftist purist ideologue who doesn't really care about national
security. In other words, arguments and rhetoric that were once
confined to Fox News/Bush-following precincts will now become
mainstream Democratic argumentation in service of defending what Obama
is doing. That's the most harmful part of this -- it trains the other
half of the citizenry to now become fervent admirers and defenders of
some rather extreme presidential "war powers."
UPDATE II: There's very little worth saying about the speech Dick Cheney delivered
after Obama's. It's just the same recycled, extremist neoconservative
pablum that drove the U.S. into the deep ditch in which it currently
finds itself. The central Cheneyite claim -- they were right because
they prevented another Terrorist attack on the Homeland -- is so
patently ludicrous, since (a) they presided over 9/11; (b) the
post-9/11 antrax attacks happened "on their watch"; (c) Clinton "kept the country safe" for almost 8 years
after the first World Trade Center attack (and, therefore, by Cheney's
reasoning, Clinton's terrorism approach must have been optimal);
and (d) it assumes without demonstrating that we're unable to defend
ourselves unless we torture people, spy without warrants, and generally
act like lawless, barbaric cretins.
I spent most of the first
couple of years after I began writing, in late 2005, focused
principally on the corruption and destruction wreaked by America's
Right (with a secondary focus on their Democratic enablers). I did
that because, back then, that was who mattered. I tend to ignore the
Cheneyite Right now because they matter far less and their glaring
flaws are manifest to most people, not because I think they're any less worthy of scorn and contempt.
UPDATE III: Upon further reflection, and after reading D-Day's reaction
to Obama's speech, one point I made in the immediate aftermath of the
speech isn't really accurate. Obama did not, as I inaccurately wrote,
"demand[] that there be no investigations or accountability for those
who repeatedly broke the law." Instead, he said that he personally is
not interested in "re-litigating" those issues, and that he opposes an
independent Truth Commissions, but also said:
I have opposed the creation of such a Commission because I believe that our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability.
The Congress can review abuses of our values, and there are ongoing
inquiries by the Congress into matters like enhanced interrogation
techniques. The Department of Justice and our courts can work through and punish any violations of our laws.
That
seems consistent with what he has said in the past -- that it is for
the Attorney General to decide who should and should not be prosecuted
-- though, as D-Day points out, those statements seem inconsistent with many of Obama's actions. That, I think, is the key point. As Holly McLachlan says in Comments: "Obama
is a tremendous speaker. The best I've seen in national politics during
my adult lifetime, without contest." Nobody can give as persuasive and
moving a political speech as he can. That's all the more reason to be
vigilant about judging him by his actions.