Obama Kudos

[RanchHQ]

After committing to do something that could become very harmful to many Americans President Obama has told the ACLU and The Wacked Out Left to take a hike.

Let's keep track of the "outrage" that both The Press and his Supporters exhibit.

"....the real goal of his allies on the left is to make it harder for the U.S. to defend itself."-WSJ

Obama's Photo Epiphany
Why make it harder for the U.S. to defend itself?

President Obama yesterday put American soldiers and national security ahead of political braying from his campaign allies on the left. What a pleasant reversal.

The White House said it will now seek to block the release of photographs collected as part of military probes into accusations of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pentagon had agreed last month to release the images by May 28, acceding to an American Civil Liberties Union request under the Freedom of Information Act.

"The President strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing U.S. forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan," a White House official said, echoing arguments made on these pages. So the Administration will renew its legal appeals, including all the way to the Supreme Court if need be.

Mr. Obama thus took the advice of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his leading generals that the photos would complicate their efforts to win over Muslim allies for America's antiterror mission. Release of the photos would also serve no public interest since they were collected as evidence in cases that have been investigated, and adjudicated when appropriate. Our guess is that Mr. Obama's political advisers also wanted to distance him from the decision to release the photos -- the better to shield him from any nasty fallout. Now the fault will lie with the ACLU.

Mr. Obama's change of heart was quickly denounced as akin to the "stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration" (the ACLU) and for "reneging on its legal obligation to release the torture photos" (Amnesty International). The President is learning, albeit slowly, that secrecy has its uses in wartime, and that the real goal of his allies on the left is to make it harder for the U.S. to defend itself.

LINK (Not FOX News):Obama's Photo Epiphany - WSJ.com

[DBCooper]

I do hope Obama is learning.

[RanchHQ]

I'm just wondering out loud here.....

President Obama may think this Law Suit with the ACLU is not winable so he is just gonna go thru the motions...

And then, when he is forced to release those photos, which will serve no purpose what so ever, President Obama can simply say that the Law Case, as presented by The Bush Administration, was not winable.

President Obama cones out clean and once again "it's Bush's fault".

After all, President Obama tried.....

[RanchHQ]

Hope and Change: Obama keeps military commissions for detainees

As Jim Geraghty would (and probably will) say, all of Obama’s statements come with an expiration date — all of them:

President Obama has decided to keep the military commission system that his predecessor created to try suspected terrorists but will ask Congress to expand the rights of defendants to contest the charges against them, officials briefed on the plan said Thursday.

Mr. Obama will ask for an additional 120-day delay in nine pending hearings before commissions so the administration can revamp the procedures to provide more due process to detainees, the officials said. The new system would limit the use of hearsay, ban evidence gained from cruel treatment, give defendants more latitude to pick their own lawyers and provide more protection if they do not testify.

The decision, to be announced Friday, could set off more criticism from civil libertarian and liberal groups that have increasingly complained that Mr. Obama has not made a sharper break from former President George W. Bush’s terrorism policies.

In fact, the ACLU was already on record against it (the Left is not always against pre-emptive strikes).

The “expanded rights” Obama provides are not much. For example, detainees already had the right to private counsel. Evidence obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment was already inadmissible if obtained after the passage of the December 2005 Detainee Treatment Act. The shifting of the burden on hearsay is unlikely to change many rulings, let alone outcomes. Obama’s flunkies are trying to defend him by noting that Obama never rejected the possibility of using military tribunals, pointing to legislation he supported as a senator in 2006 — but that legislation was far more radical than what is described now.

This looks to be the latest Obama Three-Step:

First: Denounce your presidential predecessor for a given policy, energizing your party’s base and capitalizing on his abiding unpopularity.

Second: Pretend to have reversed that policy upon taking office with a symbolic act or high-profile statement.

Third: Adopt a version of that same policy, knowing that it’s the only way to govern responsibly or believing that doing otherwise is too difficult. Repeat as necessary.

In February, the Obama administration ruled that some 600 enemy combatants at Bagram have no constitutional rights. In March, Obama dropped the term “enemy combatant,” but adopted almost the same standard the Bush administration used to detain people without charge. In April, the administration appealed a court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. It is beginning to look like “repeat as necessary” is a monthly event.

This particular three-step is interesting because Obama is asking for another 120-day delay of hearings at Guantanamo. Such a delay would be useful for an administration that still has no plan for delivering on Obama’s campaign promise to shut down the facility, wouldn’t it?

LINK: (Not FOX News) The Greenroom Forum Archive Hope and Change: Obama keeps military commissions for detainees

[RanchHQ]

Let's see, The White House OMB says next year we will have a $3.59 Trillion Budget Deficit.

President Obama says "current deficit spending is unsustainable".

We have a saying about the Barn Door closing after the Horse has been turned loose.....

Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’ (Update2)

By Roger Runningen and Hans Nichols

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Earlier this week, the Obama administration revised its own budget estimates and raised the projected deficit for this year to a record $1.84 trillion, up 5 percent from the February estimate. The revision for the 2010 fiscal year estimated the deficit at $1.26 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the February figure. The White House Office of Management and Budget also projected next year’s budget will end up at $3.59 trillion, compared with the $3.55 trillion it estimated previously.

Two weeks ago, the president proposed $17 billion in budget cuts, with plans to eliminate or reduce 121 federal programs. Republicans ridiculed the amount, saying that it represented one-half of 1 percent of the entire budget. They noted that Obama is seeking an $81 billion increase in other spending.

Long Article: Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ?Unsustainable? (Update2) - Bloomberg.com