Wolf Howling: abuse

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Obama Does A "Complete 180" On Releasing Detainee Abuse Photos To ACLU

Obama has, as ABC White House Correspondent Jack Tapper puts it, done a "complete 180" on the issue of whether to release 44 more detainee abuse photos pursuant to a FOIA lawsuit brought by the ACLU. The photos date to the Abu Ghraib time frame and come from DOD investigative files. The primary effect of their release is quite predictable - to provide the radical Muslim element with a propaganda windfall and to put our soldiers in greater danger. That is weighted against the ACLU claim that it would show how evil BushHitler was, or something like that.

Obama, three weeks ago, had stopped court proceedings on this issue, indicating that the U.S. would release the photos without any further defense. Sec. of Def. Gates, in the link above, indicated that he passed on the warning to Obama from Gen. Odierno - that such release of photos would "cost American lives." I can't imagine that alone would be a tipping point for Obama, given his prior positions on things such as genocide in Iraq. But Obama is under fire for his blatantly political decision to release the carefully redacted torture memos and the ramifications of that decision are clearly getting away from him. I would imagination that the tipping point lies in the latter rather than the former.

Update: It has been pointed out that Obama is supposed to give a major speech in Egypt very shortly after the May 28 release date set for the photos. Could that also have influenced his decision?

Rapture

Dana Milbank's column today in the Washington Post could, under no circumstances, be mistaken for a serious piece of journalism. It is instead a paean on the wonders of the Obamamessiah and a recounting of the many blessings he has bestowed upon us.

This today from Dana Millibank:

Maybe Barack Obama really is The One.

Yesterday's news was good -- almost supernaturally so.

The economy? Recovering.

The markets? Rallying.

Swine flu? Abating.

Drought? Ending.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared his confidence that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are well secured. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee declared his confidence that a massive health-care overhaul will be accomplished this year. Warren Buffett declared his confidence that the economy is "out of the quicksand." And the Supreme Court was confident enough about the state of the nation to turn its attention to Janet Jackson's breasts.

Call it good policy, as Democrats do, or beginner's luck, as the last remaining Republicans do, but you can practically hear the nation collectively exhaling.

The rapid improvement in the public's mood is without precedent in modern history. Last week's Washington Post poll found that 50 percent of Americans think things are generally going in the right direction, up from only 8 percent in early October. That's the quickest change in optimism since the question was first asked by The Post in 1980. Views of President Obama, in turn, were impossibly high: Ninety percent called him willing to listen to different views, and better than 70 percent called him a strong leader, honest and trustworthy, and understanding of people's problems.

And that was before happiness started busting out all over yesterday. . . .

If you have the stomach, you can read the remainder of the article here. The tone of the article does not change.

Have we ever, in the history of our country, been so disserved by our press as over the past year.

I thought perhaps that after the January coronation the press's ador might wane and serious reporting on Obama might commence. That is clearly not the case.

Little if any ink is spent on the downsides of doubling the national debt in 100 days. Obama strong arms private business only to receive a collective yawn. Obama forces banks to keep TARP funds and then threatens a backdoor nationalization - we get a collective shrug. Indications are that Obama has used the leverage he holds over banks to drive their policy - including getting them to roll, against their best interests, on the GM and Chrysler debt that they hold. The press pulls out pillows. Obama shows blatant and unfair favortism to a constiuency and attacks the shareholders who refuse to acquiese. The press goes from feral to fetal. These are huge abuses, anyone of which would, in prior administrations, have justified serious investigative reporting. Yet the press is uninterested and the events pass virtually unremarked.

Instead, we get near pornographic trash such as that penned by Mr. Millibank. I wonder if it will be possible to overcome this gross distortion of our democracy - you know, our political system to which a free and honest press has long been called central.