Count me in President Barack Obama’s corner. However, I am not in his pocket. When he or someone in the administration for which he is responsible does something wrong, I call it as I see it. Here are two examples of this, I’m sorry to say. They are the trial of Omar Khadr and yesterday’s ludicrous outburst by Robert Gibbs.
Jury selection has begun at the military-commission trial for Omar Khadr at Guantánamo. Khadr is the Canadian whom we captured when he was fifteen, after a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002; among the casualties in that encounter were Army Sergeant Christopher Speer, who was killed by a grenade, and Khadr, who was shot up and almost dead (but the only only survivor on his side). He has been accused of throwing the grenade that killed Speer, though it’s far from clear that he did. What is not in question is his age at the time, and that he was on the battlefield not because he was some rebellious child but because his father, an Al Qaeda associate who is now dead, sent him there. (Khadr was born in Toronto; I’ve written about his case before.) One reason Khadr has spent eight years—more than a third of his life—in Guantánamo is that he doesn’t come from what most people would call a respectable family, which has hurt him in terms of motivating the Canadian government to get him out of there. But is the niceness of parents the basis on which we decide to imprison teen-agers? And where are our concerns about the rehabilitation of child soldiers when one falls into our own hands? (Michelle Shephard, at the Toronto Star, has a piece on the former general who will be testifying as a medical expert in Khadr’s defense.)
Another thing that’s not in question: at preliminary hearings, a former interrogator acknowledged telling Khadr, then fifteen, that a boy like him might end up gang-raped by “a bunch of big black guys and big Nazis” if he didn’t say what guards wanted to hear. Another described Khadr chained, hooded, and crying. Khadr has alleged that he was tortured. Yesterday, the judge at his tribunal said that statements he made in those circumstances were perfectly admissible. What isn’t admissible, then? And why would a court looking for the truth even want such statements?
Why, really, did the Obama Administration decide that this case was the one to make the subject of the first full-fledged test of military commissions on its watch? A judge in a civilian court might at least have saved the prosecution from itself (morally speaking, if not in terms of getting a conviction at any price). If the Khadr case is a model of what Obama wants to happen in Guantánamo, it’s an ugly one… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <The New Yorker>
Rachel Maddow and Michael Isikoff discuss the trial, banning reporters because they published already public information, and spurious rule changes about coverage.
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Frankly this is not the behavior I expected from Obama, and it is completely contrary to what he promised to do during his campaign. This is what I would have expected from Bush.
And on that note…
The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who irritated fellow Democrats recently by saying Republicans might reclaim control of the House in November, is once again in hot water with his own party, after lambasting President Obama’s critics on what he called “the professional left.’’
In an interview with The Hill newspaper, published Tuesday, Mr. Gibbs unloaded his frustration with liberals who are themselves frustrated with the president.
“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested – I mean, it’s crazy,’’ Mr. Gibbs was quoted in the newspaper as saying.
He went on to condemn the “professional left,’’ saying: “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.’’
Mr. Gibbs’ remarks raced around the blogosphere and dominated much of the daily White House briefing, which was conducted Tuesday by his deputy, Bill Burton, who explained that the press secretary had a sore throat…
Inserted from <NY Times>
I think Gibbs’ comments were unjustified. Admittedly, there is a wing-nut fringe at the extreme of the progressive movement that is every bit as crazy as many of the Republicans’ leading politicians, but an overwhelming majority of us are not that way at all.
Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore discuss this.
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I think they described exactly what is going on here. The Obama administration is venting their discomfort that we have been right all along. Gibbs took off the gloves with the wrong people. He needs to go after the real villains here. I am still in Obama’s corner, but I am very disappointed in him today.
Keith summed this up with one of his best special comments ever. You owe it to yourself to watch this. Since he expresses my view perfectly, I’ll leave it at that.
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25 Responses to “Obama Administration Screws the Pooch – Twice”
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Welcome to the “professional left,” comrade. I gotta tell you though… I’m doing something wrong, because I’m not getting rich off ranting.
Dang, JR. I thought I was so poor, because you were getting all the money! 😉
You’re not happy with this TC nor am I. This administration unfortunately is very Bush like when it comes to these matters and Gibbs proves how far removed they are from liberal/progressive thinking.
Dems at national level are not that far removed from what the Regressives are like. They may come across as very different but it’s just not so.
That may be a bit too stern, Fly. It is certainly true of many Senators, but if half of what had passed the House had made it through the Senate, we’d have a lot less frustration.
I have somehow deprogrammed my remote and can’t get cable anymore, so I’m a little behind on U. S. News.
Heh. I largely get it from Jon Stewat’s The Daily show anyway. So Illl just go with Canadian news and maybe offer an almost biblical take on this.
The Khadr case.
The sins of the father are passed on to even the next generation?
Whatever guilt with Master Khadr, he has done enough time…In Canada’s impossible criminal justice system, and axe murderer would have probably stayed in jail about as long as young Khadr.
I think Mr. Obama, who is Canadian-friendly will probably eventually see to young Khadr’s release.
But after the abuse and allegegd torture, you’re going to have a pretty bitter adult here.
And the family thing.
The monster, Grendel can be slain….But then there’s Grendel’s mother to contend with.
Have you considered reprogramming it, Ivan? 😉
Well said. Had we dealt with him properly at the time, we would have no problem. How can we expect him not to be an enemy after what we have done to him?
OK so we beat up a 15 year old who was forced into a battle by an ideologue father and promised him we would fuck him in the ass if he doesn’t say what we want him to say: I am so proud of my country.
Then Obushma continues almost every single previous administration policy including the right to warrantless wiretaps and searches but promises we will have a public option or a single payer health care system when he meant was we will be giving 30,000,000 people a chance to either be taxed into or forced onto medicaid (the worst system of medical delivery), will reform Wall Street by letting them continue to run the economy not by having their lobbyists influence policy but by importing them into government jobs that write policy. Promises a fair deal for the working class by calling the weekly loss of 450,000 jobs better than losing 700,000. Will close the doughnut hole by making a backdoor deal with drug companies that gives them 80,000,000,000 dollars. And when a true disaster hits in a deep water well blow out for the first weeks lets them that caused the blow out call the shots on how to stop it and extracts 20 billion into a payout fund which we all know will get reduced to the laws 75 million cap and we will pay as taxpayers the 200 billion that ill only just start to return the wetlands to viability as animal habitat which will in itself take a minimum of forty years for it to clean itself. and then can’t even get a comprehensive energy policy to the floor for debate. The longer it goes on the more the white house looks like a whorehouse.
Yeah I am a liberal, even progressive on some issues but Obushma has been a bigger disappointment than Jimmy Carter. at least history was shown that Carter was hamstrung by Reagan negotiating as a private citizen with the Ayatollah Khomeini before he even became president. Obushma has both houses on his side of the aisle and still gives the store away. I think he is the national Alvin Greene, a republican plant. Want change put Sherrod Brown in charge of it.
Nope and anyone who says “Count me in President Barack Obama’s corner…” .regardless of what comes after that statement I think is still looking for the “what if’s” instead of the “what is.”
Sorry Tom as president this guy for two years has sucked as a liberal and proven to me that his best attribute is giving a good speech full of bullshit he is either incapable of accomplishing or is a flat out lie and Gibbs and his snide comment may have just pushed me into the “who gives a fuck about the midterm election s” corner. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick will no longer represent me in congress and that was the single most important issue for me personally in the midterm. I like the guy who won the Demo primary but I think I really don’t give a crap when the leaders of the left crap on my principles and tell me it isn’t shit, it’s fertilizer they can kiss my ass while I sit this one out and let them have the next two years learning how to either sign into law everything the right passes when they get the house s back or veto. Fuck Gibbs. And this half assed bullshit give away everything he promised in the campaign administration.
Obushma reminds me so much of republican John Engler it makes me sick.
Thanks,TWM, you wrote most of my thoughts.
Mark, I can’t argue with any of the points you made. I can only say that supporting Democrats for now is the only viable way to bring about the demise of the Republican Party, after which we can build a new centrist party, which would be to the left of today’s Democratic Party.
Let’s them kick us in our collective nuts once again….
Is this how they truly feel? I’m not feeling the love, every time I show support as in prosecuting Gitmo cases in New York, they back down and go the Republican way. I can go on and on about the disappointment I feel.
People keep telling me, well he’s better than Bush…….Wow what high standards we set. Or I get, well what do you want Palin as President……No I don’t. I am taking another look at Dennis Kuchinik though.
What was that old saying…Ah yes have the courage of your convictions. Obama should read that.
I know, I know blasphemy, I can only say what I feel.
Sorry Gibbs set me off… I wish I had the time and money back from my support. grrrrrr
Tim, if Kucinich had gotten the nomination he said he would have chosen Ron Paul as his running mate. Look to other lights of the left. Anyone who would chose Paul is not a viable candidate.
I like to think I’m a rather sophisicated political realist. I didn’t expect Obama to get half of what he promised done. But I damn sure didn’t expect this basic roll over that we witness daily. I’m simply tired of moving closer to the right in order to induce the right to play fair. They won’t, they want to rule as a single party government forever. Olbermann said it best. I concur. I’m just disgusted. Let the f***kers filibuster all day every day. I’m tired of compromising everything until it’s worth nothing.
Sherry, as usual, we have landed in the same place.
Gibbs is proof the Democratic Party is mostly moderate/right corporatists. Contrary to the propaganda machine of the Right, Liberals/Progressives are a minority in the party, and are disrespectfully treated as such.
Dave, I agree. Please see my reply to Mark.
I understand Gibb’s frustration as well as “liberal” frustrations with the administration and agree that Gibb’s statements were misplaced – he needs to show that kind of attitude with the conservative obstructionists.
He certainly does, Kevin. He would not have his job were it not for us.
Not to be anti here ToCat and Dave, it’d money and the corporatists that are in charge of the Democratic Party. They’re not in the majority. Something happens to a Dem when he wins election. He/she turns into a corporate whore.
Who is ToCat? 😉
Check out today’s lead story, Truth. There are just enough DINOs for whom that id true to hamstring the rest.
I understand prospective jurors for the Khadr trial (all military people, natch) were asked if they believed a 15-year-old should be held responsible for murder. I didn’t hear about them being asked if they had knowledge of how child soldiers are indoctrinated, and I wonder if they were asked about that. It’s more pertinent to this case than whether a teen should be held culpable for someone’s death.
The Khadr trial is a black mark on the United States’ international reputation, and a disgrace to the Obama administration. It’s also, of course, a source of disgrace to Canada’s government for doing nothing to stop it.
Good post, Tom. Thanks.
I trust they were not, Stimpson. I fear this court is a convocation of kangaroos.
It is both. As for Harper’s Harlots, you be the judge of that.
I agree with much of what you wrote Tom as well what everyone else said. Especially what Truth said, the corporation have both parties in their pockets and while this may sound conspiratorial but I almost believe they play them off against the common folk.
I do support Obama, I still believe he is a good man having to play a game with rules made up before he entered politics. But like you said Tom I am not in his pocket, the biggest question I have about his leadership is does he have the will and the courage to buck the rules? Right now it ain’t looking good.
Beach, I think you put your finger on it. But Dems actually get only around 1/3 of the money corporations are spreading around, and most of that goes to bush dogs in the House and DINOs in the Senate.
I think that insider types have convinced Obama that if he does not play ball, he will become Jimmy Carter, Jr. I hope he has the integrity and will to break through that.
Just an addend:
Distinguished general and Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire has said on Canadian TV that it is after all the Pengagon that trumps politicians in America.
That is quite a take!
That is largely true, Ivan. But more than the Pentagon, it’s military contractors. It would make sense for subcontractors for a weapons system to be geographical clustered around the general contractor, but that’s not how it does. Especially in the Senate, virtually no legislator can oppose any weapons system without knowing that canceling it will cost some of his constituents their jobs.