The details of the private meeting coming out on the eve of what is being billed as a major speech on national security paints an unflattering picture of President Obama’s mindset, with the debacle of the Gitmo funding defeat yesterday as a backdrop.
There’s a level of naivety and ill preparedness to what’s unfolding right now, which Marc Ambinder points to as well:
But the President, and his senior advisers, bear at least some responsibility for the grand gesture of promising to shut down Guantanamo Bay within a year well before the administration had begun to review the casebooks and intelligence reports about the 240 odd detainees in United States custody.
Barack Obama knows better. But it reminds me of the sloppy decision to release the detainee photos, which Obama reversed, something that didn’t need to happen if the Administration had thought things out more carefully. There was nothing that really changed between the time of Obama’s backtracking, because we had the Iraq withdrawal plan in place already so Gen. Odierno’s case could have been made in time for the White House to make a decision and stick to it.
But if Isikoff’s sources are correct and their perception of the closed Obama meeting with human rights groups is a fair assessment, President Obama has decided that the Founders’ separation of power idea is a little to quaint for his tastes.
On the issue of what Bush-Cheney did, why they did it and when the torture began, all Obama had to do was follow the separation of powers argument and stick with it, stating that the president has no jurisdiction over legal matters. It has the virtue of being true.
Instead, according to those either in the meeting or familiar with it who talked with Isikoff, Attorney General Holder sat mute while President Obama made the case that investigating the Bush administration is taking up way too much time, with a truth commission still a no go. As for prosecutions, Obama reportedly nixed that the moment it was mentioned. Shorter description: Sitting as president, Obama played attorney general too.
Isikoff also reports that Mr. Obama didn’t like the way at least one person referred to him in conjunction with George W. Bush, saying that Obama was basically taking on Bush era policies on Gitmo and other issues. Obama bristled at this, evidently.
I see a bubble.
This all sets the stage for Obama’s speech, which is already sounding like an I Did This Because speech, which will try to convince people he’s still on the same course he set during the campaign. Of course, that’s rubbish.
The President has a lot of explaining to do. However, I don’t think Mr. Obama can go far enough to explain his lack of courage in utilizing the power he was given upon being elected at a time when Republicans are at a low, with the Democrats fully in charge in Congress.
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