the rightwing czar

Who would have thought that Obama’s attempts to implement Bush’s policies would be blocked by Bush-appointed judges? That’s irony for you. Or maybe it’s just the universe’s way of making the President reap the harvest he and the Democrats have been sowing:

In recent weeks, three different Bush appointees considering cases relating to war-on-terror detainees have rejected arguments from Obama’s Justice Department, which adopted virtually unchanged the positions the Bush administration had staked out.

In each case, the Bush-appointed judge said the executive branch was overstepping its authority and claiming more powers than the law allowed.

I guess that means there’s at least one campaign promise Obama might be forced to keep.

If “war” isn’t a big enough word to describe what’s going on between our troops and the Islamic fascists trying to kill them, I’d like to know what is.

Maybe it’s the “assault on terrorism” or the “conflict with terrorism.” Those sound a lot more serious than “war on terrorism,” right?

What else could explain the fact that he ignored the Iranian government for a week while it rigged an election and brutalized protestors but actively tried to intervene in a Honduran regime change?

Not that anyone is surprised:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering forgoing legislation and issuing an executive order that would authorize the president to incarcerate some terrorism suspects indefinitely, White House officials said Friday.

Such an order would be controversial — seemingly aligning the administration with a disputed legal doctrine of former President George W. Bush, whose lawyers held that the president had sweeping authority in wartime to imprison those he deemed threats to national security.

Seemingly aligned with George W. Bush? Let’s review the New York Times’ past thoughts about indefinite detention and see if we have “seeming” alignment. (And as you can probably tell, this is a very light review of everything the NYT wrote about Bush’s detainment policies.)

“Indefinite Detention” – 11.24.08

For more than five years, the Bush administration has been holding Ali al-Marri, a legal resident of the United States, in near isolation under President Bush’s reprehensible enemy combatant doctrine. The Supreme Court is to meet on Tuesday to decide whether to review the case, and it should. The justices need to make clear that a president cannot trample on individual rights by imprisoning people indefinitely simply by asserting that they are tied to terrorism.

“The Court v. Bush” – 6.29.04

At issue yesterday was Mr. Bush’s claim that he can label any American an ”enemy combatant” and hold him or her in prison indefinitely without trial or access to counsel. The case involved Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen who was taken prisoner in Afghanistan and has been held in solitary confinement in a Navy brig in South Carolina.

“Court backs Bush on military detentions” 7.15.08

President George W. Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.

“Bush Seeks to Affirm a Continuing War on Terror” 8.29.08

It could, they say, provide the legal framework for Mr. Bush and his successor to assert once again the president’s broad interpretation of the commander in chief’s wartime powers, powers that Justice Department lawyers secretly used to justify the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects and the National Security Agency’s wiretapping of Americans without court orders.

So just so we’re clear: the NYT had a very established line about indefinite detention: Bush did it, and when he did it was controversial, evil, secret, and an abuse of power.

But when Obama flirts with the exact same idea, for some reason, he is only “seemingly” aligned with Bush? Why might that be? Because if Obama does align himself with Bush on the issue, that means everything they said about Bush ignoring separation of powers, extending the power of the executive, and using “secret powers” that “trample on individual rights” would now apply to President Obama.

The NYT doesn’t want to eat its words and it certainly doesn’t want to go after the Obama administration like it did Bush.

So what’s its only other option? Nuance the similarities as much as possible and hope no one notices.

Now this is change I can believe in. I eagerly await the nutroot outrage.

Hey, Bush was the Great Satan – at least Obama is just a meddler.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday called the U.S. president inexperienced, compared him unfavorably to President George W. Bush and suggested he apologize for “interfering in Iran’s affairs.”

“Do you think that this kind of behavior is going to solve any of your problems? It will only make people think you are someone like Bush,” the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Barack Obama is a liar – except don’t call him that because it might be “unfair” – even though he lied over and over again.

IT ISN’T QUITE FAIR to call Barack Obama a liar. During the campaign he carefully avoided committing to much of anything important that he might have to take back later. For now, I won’t quibble with The St. Petersburg Times’s Obamameter, which so far has the president keeping 30 promises and breaking only six.

And yet, broadly speaking, Obama has been lying on a pretty impressive scale. You just have to get past his grandiloquent rhetoric — usually empty of substance — to get a handle on it. I offer a short, incomplete list, which I’m sure others could easily enlarge.

Amongst the lies that John MacArthur details in his piece are his lie about being the anti-war candidate, his lie about ending corruption in Washington, and his lie about wanting to end NAFTA. Despite going into excellent detail about the many faces of Barack, MacArthur thinks it’s “unfair” to call him a liar. I’m sorry, did we come up with a new word for someone that habitually says things that aren’t true?

I guess one way to look at it is to say that deep in his heart Obama meant everything he said on the campaign trail and he would like to make those things come true if it weren’t for the messy reality that comes with being the President of the United States. Sure, he wants to end the war and he meant everything he said about bringing all our troops home, but he didn’t realize that his plans really weren’t realistic – or even feasible.

And maybe he really did want to dismantle NAFTA in exchange for “fairer” trade practices, but when he took on the role of President, he realized you can’t just cut off two of your geographically closest trading allies without consequences.

But isn’t that exactly the point we made during the campaign? Obama might have a lot of “good ideas,” but good ideas are often spoiled by harsh reality – a reality that Obama really didn’t know very well from his little experience as a state senator and four years of almost inactive service in the U.S. Senate.

So maybe MacArthur is right. It’s unfair to label Obama a liar. He’s just naive and inexperienced. Now where have I heard that before?

Not kidding.

In the case of Iran, President Obama has rightly determined that it is in the U.S. interest to speak up for the opposition forces’ fundamental rights to assembly and free speech, but that he otherwise must refrain from bluster or bullying that would provide a justification for more repression.

Obama’s campaign was built on meaningless rhetoric and empty words. I thought that eventually people would realize that he doesn’t mean most of what he says – and that, in general, he’s full of hot air. Turns out that Obama’s emphasis on style over substance wasn’t just a campaign trick – it’s his foreign policy strategy.

According to the LA Times, voicing mildly uninterested support for the opposition without any real intentions to actually, you know, support them, is the most brilliant idea they’ve ever heard. If only the U.S. had been deeply concerned about Iran over the last 60 years – we’d probably not be in this mess in the first place!

Who woulda thunk it?

The chaos in Iran stemming from last week’s disputed election may ultimately crush any hopes the Obama administration has for engaging the country in the near term, insiders and analysts warned.

Since taking office, President Obama has tried to reach out to the Iranian public and government, declaring that he’s willing to engage any regime that will “unclench” its fist — Iran was a primary target of that message.

At this point in the game, why in the world are we worried about whether or not dialogue with a tyrant like Ahmadinejad is going to work? From the looks of it, the Iranian government doesn’t seem to want dialogue even with its own people.

Hey I’ve got an idea! Why doesn’t the Obama administration get a backbone and call a villain for what it is? What we’re seeing in Iran is devastating, but you know what? It isn’t anything we shouldn’t have expected.

What we know about the Iranian government today isn’t much different than what we knew two weeks ago – the only difference is that it’s going to be a lot harder to convince people that “dialogue” is a good idea.

What’s the difference between Bush and Obama? Well, according to the New York Times, not much at all:

And while the substance of his Iran policy does not vary that much from Mr. Bush’s — the United States still seeks to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, still criticizes Iran’s support for militant Islamist organizations, still allies itself staunchly with Israel — he has taken pains to flavor that policy with different atmospherics.

Ah! If only Bush had picked a better “flavor” to coat his foreign policy with – maybe then he would have been the recipient of absurdly positive press coverage.

You know what’s funniest about this? The Times, a supposedly legitimate and objective source of news, is making the same point that a comedian made in January. The NYT has been nothing but hackery for years – but who would have thought they’d reach the point of repackaging a late-night comedy bit as serious political analysis?