Sully: The Re-BalancingThe idea that Dick Cheney, who everyone hates, is going to go head-to-head with America’s popular new president in a “showdown” is a bit absurd. But just to help hype the matchup, CNN has a new poll out showing that Cheney is now more popular: “As Dick Cheney prepares to give a major speech on the battle against terrorism, a new national poll suggests that favorable opinions of the former vice president are on the rise.”
To help put this in context, though, compare the favorable rating CNN registered for Cheney to the favorable ratings CNN registered in April for select foreign countries:
With his new bump, Cheney is only slightly less well-liked than Cuba. China and Russia are kicking his ass.
I'm on vacation, I know, but a speech of this maturity and magnitude demands some kind of comment on a blog that has been deeply disturbed by and engaged in these questions of the laws of war, torture, abuse, detention, interrogation and the like over the last few years. I reprint it here in its entirety, as I have many such speeches from Barack Obama since the beginning of his campaign for the presidency.
I regard it as the national security equivalent of his Jeremiah Wright speech. Why? Because it managed to reach a place apart from, while being fully part of, the furious debates we have been having. These debates are vital, and the notion that we can simply move on from the Bush-Cheney era without some accounting or reform is both empirically and morally false. We are struggling for a sustainable, long-term balance between security against a ruthless and unprincipled and lawless enemy - and a law of war, and a judicial system and a civilization that we rightly love and want to defend. This struggle will be a long one, and an extremely difficult one, and the most profound of the insights that the president offered today is as banal as it is central:
There is a core principle that we will apply to all of our actions: even as we clean up the mess at Guantanamo, we will constantly re-evaluate our approach, subject our decisions to review from the other branches of government, and seek the strongest and most sustainable legal framework for addressing these issues in the long-term.
This speech, to my mind, was a conservative one by a conservative president who seeks first and foremost to use existing institutions to address the new challenges of the moment, and then seeks pragmatic compromises, always open to future checks and balances, in those places where such institutions clearly need reform and adjustment. The speech does not shrink from clear positions but it always does so from a place of reason and authority as opposed to politics and power. It is a presidential speech - from a man who seeks to unite and lead this country forward, rather than someone who sees fear and division as a tool to be exploited.
I'm going to ponder some of the specifics over the next few days. Such a thoughtful speech deserves our time and reflection. And that is also why I'm not going to linger on the politics of all this today. I have no idea whether Obama or Cheney will "win" this news cycle. I do know that this is far too important a question to be judged in that fashion.
I can say this after watching the speech and reading its text: by his sobriety and balance, care and precision, Obama has sketched a way forward that is a function of both war and law, seeking no shallow political edge in an area that should never have been abused by Rovian cynicism in the first place. At first blush, I find the balance near pitch-perfect - on detention, torture, interrogation and Gitmo.
Like the president, I am under no illusions as to the enemy we face and the need to fight it. But like the president, I was deeply disturbed by both the tools that the last president used - above all the tool of torture - and the rationale of uncheckable and lawless executive supremacy that underpinned it. Something very profound went very wrong. We all need to understand that at a minimum, however we want to move forward.
I wish the war could be over. It isn't. More important, I do not want America to be over, and, thanks to this remarkable figure in a terribly divided and difficult time, it isn't. The system which relies on law not men, on decency not barbarism, on democratic balance not autocratic deciderism is the system we are fighting for. It won, as Obama noted, even before the last election when two anti-torture candidates, McCain and Obama, emerged from the pack. But its long-term victory was never assured.
I feel much more confidence now that victory - for both our system and the war against Jihadism - is possible. Civil liberties purists will quibble and fight. Cheney-dead-enders will continue to stoke fear and division. I think this is the right balance - and deserves our vocal and persistent support.
The full speech is after the jump:
- Josh Marshall: Cheney Secrecy & War Crimes Blogging
11:20 AM ... Cheney starts things off classy with some snide comments about Obama's speech length.
11:24 AM ... Transcript of Cheney's speech. So far basically 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 sort of echoes of Rudyism.
11:27 AM ... Still trying. Cheney hinting at the Iraq/al Qaida tie ... "We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."
11:28 AM ... Cheney now seems to be arguing he was psychologically traumatized by the experience of watching the 9/11 attacks like the rest of us did.
11:30 AM ... Shorter Cheney: If you don't agree with my torture policies, you don't take 9/11 seriously.
11:31 AM ... Now discussing how New York Times put American lives in danger.
11:33 AM ... In many ways, it's obvious. But listening to Cheney, you get such a rich sense of the difference between these two men. Cheney, grizzly, paranoid and feeling and more than anything harshly partisan.
11:39 AM ... Calling torture 'torture' is libel.
11:42 AM ... I think the truest read on Cheney is his cutting and snide anger contrasted with his history of personal cowardice, ducking service in the Vietnam war he himself vociferously supported. Fear and anger are his defining emotions.
11:45 AM ... Wondering how long it took Bill Kristol to write this speech.
11:46 AM ... Looking forward to the usual special pleading and kid glove treatment Cheney gets from the Washington press corps.
Amy Sullivan (Swampland): Vatican Newspaper: "Obama is Not a Pro-Abortion President"
First L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, ran an article giving Obama's first 100 days a tentative thumbs-up. Then, as conservative Catholics in the U.S. were wringing their hands about the horror of Barack Obama's scheduled appearance at Notre Dame, the newspaper--and the Vatican in general--was conspicuously silent. Then, when the paper did report on Obama's speech, its calm, fairly positive take was in stark contrast to the furious reaction of many conservative Catholics here.
But this takes the cake. In an interview with an Italian newspaper the day after Obama's speech, Giavonni Maria Vian, editor-in-chief of L'Osservatore Romano, seemed to forcefully push back against the view that Obama is a threat to Catholic values and religious freedom. “Obama has not upset the world,” said Vian. “His speech at Notre Dame has been respectful toward every position. He tried to engage the debate stepping out from every ideological position and outside every ‘confrontational mentality.' To this extent his speech is to be appreciated.”
After reaffirming that the Vatican newspaper shares the American bishops' staunch opposition to abortion, Vian went further. "What I want to stress is that yesterday, on this precise and very delicate issue, the President said that the approval of the new law on abortion is not a priority of his administration. The fact that he said that is very reassuring to me. It also underlines my own clear belief: Obama is not a pro-abortion president."
Uh, oh. It sounds like the Vatican newspaper "doesn't understand what it means to be Catholic."
John Cole: The Silly Party
It just doesn’t stop:
Members of the Republican National Committee appear to have reached a compromise that would let GOP leaders avoid a possible dispute over a controversial resolution that calls on Democrats to re-name their party the “Democrat Socialist party.”Steele has come out against the resolution, calling it “not an appropriate way to express our views on the issues of the day.” One of Steele’s allies on the committee, Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer, told CNN the resolution is “stupid” and “ridiculous.”
However, New Jersey committeeman David Norcross, one of the sponsors of the resolution, told CNN the language is being massaged so that Steele and others on the committee will be more receptive.
Generally, when parties are out of party they do some soul-searching, and look inward and try to figure out who they are and what they believe in. Imagine if the Democrats had spent 2001-2006 arguing over what silly thing they should rename the Republicans. I just have no idea what these guys are thinking, what they think this will accomplish. It really does look like the only guiding principle they have is that anything that insults or pisses off Democrats must be good.
I don’t get it. I’d really like one of them to state what they think this would accomplish.
- Benen: THE RNC AND ITS RESOLUTIONS....
Republican National Committee members invested quite a bit of time and energy recently on a resolution that would beg the Democratic Party to change its name. The more the RNC pushed this, the sillier the party appeared.
Yesterday, the party backed off a little, approving a merely foolish resolution, as compared to a blisteringly foolish resolution.
The Republican National Committee backed away Wednesday from a resolution that officially called Democrats the "Democrat Socialist Party," but instead voted to condemn Democrats for what it called a "march toward socialism."
The voice-vote came after an unusual special meeting of the party that underlined fractures among Republicans on how to deal with President Obama and the Democratic Party. The original resolution was backed by some of the party's more conservative members but was opposed by the party chairman, Michael Steele, as well as other Republican leaders. The opponents said the proposal to impose a new name on the Democrats made the Republican party appear trite and overly partisan, and would prove politically embarrassing. [...]
[W]hile stopping short of officially trying to rename the Democratic Party, the resolution said the Republican National Committee members "recognize that the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals."
In other words, this isn't really a win for "moderation" at the RNC.
Indeed, the time invested in this "debate" among committee members only helped magnify the party's difficulties. Given all of the problems Republicans are facing, who thought it would be a good idea for prolonged debate about urging the majority party to name itself the "Democrat Socialist Party"? Is that really the best use of the RNC's time right now?
As Josh Marshall noted the other day, "I haven't seen a nugget that so perfectly typifies the current GOP's mix of ideological obscurantism and dingbat sloganeering as this."
In 2005, after Democrats saw Republicans take control of the White House, Senate, and House by wide margins, Howard Dean took control of the DNC and put a 50-state strategy in place. Four years later, Republicans saw Dems take control over the same institutions, and began a lengthy debate over use of the phrase "Democrat Socialist Party."
Nothing says "comeback" quite like a pointless argument over a name-calling resolution that wouldn't accomplish anything.
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