Posted on 05/20/2009 10:32:46 AM PDT by kellynla
With the Democratic no-go on Guantánamo (I'll leave it to the better informed to ascertain the degree that the Democratic Congress came to the rescue of an embarrassed Obama administration and cut off funding for the shutdown to allow him an out with the now familiar excuse of "they did it — not me, who keeps promises"), I think we now have come to the end to the five-year left-wing attack theme of Bush "shredding the Constitution."
Except for the introduction of euphemisms and a few new ballyhooed but largely meaningless protocols, there is no longer a Bush-did-it argument. The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq, Afghanistan — and now Guantánamo — are officially no longer part of the demonic Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld nexus, but apparently collective legitimate anti-terrorism measures designed to thwart killers, and by agreement, after years of observance, of great utility in keeping us safe the last eight years.
Add in the Holder statements about Guantánamo in the 2002 interview, the Pelosi/Rockefeller/et al. waterboarding briefings, the need to consider torture in past statements by senators such as Schumer, and I think historians will now look back at these "dark years" as largely a collective, bipartisan effort.
All of which leaves us a final musing: If so, what was the hysteria of 2001-2008 about other than simple politics?
I doubt we get any more movies about ongoing renditions, redactions, any more Checkpoint-like novels, any more waterboarding skits and reenactments, any more late-night comedians doing their Bush tapped, intercepted, tortured, renditioned, tribunaled poor suspect X routines.
And I guess as well that the good old days of supposedly flushed Korans in Guantánamo and Omar the poor liberationist renditioned to Cairo are over. We are now in the age of a sober and judicious President Obama who circumspectly, if reluctantly and in anguish at the high cost, does what is necessary to keep us safe.
And we won't see a brave young liberal senator, Obama-like, barnstorming the Iowa precincts blasting a presidency for trampling our values with the shame of Guantánamo, wiretaps, intercepts, renditions, military tribunals, Predators, Iraq, etc. That motif just dissolved — or rather, it never really existed.
It short, all the fury, the vicious slander, the self-righteous outbursts, the impassioned speeches from the floor, the "I accuse" op-eds by the usual moralistic pundits — all that turned out to be solely about politics, nothing more.
I thought I would help you out today.
Quote of the month --- maybe of the year.
Why - oh why - can’t we get VDH on the front page of Digg?
Thank you!
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Pajamasmedia: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
Just a partial list. More at the link: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index
As if there was any doubt, of course. Bush was tainted with the “original sin” of the 2000 election and the mere fact that he’s a Republican. Nothing he could have done policy-wise would have changed any of the vitriol hurled against him.
Much, if not most, of the Obama Administration’s policies are substantively nothing more than a continuation of the Bush Administration’s, particularly with regards to foreign relations and the economy (with the notable exception of taxes). Many of Bush’s policies in these areas can be traced back to the Clinton Administration. The reason Bush was vilified while Clinton and Obama were lionized had everything to do with who was giving the orders and almost nothing to do with what those orders were.
You’re very welcome.
Not that it hasn’t been obvious for about five years now.
Doesn't it just make you feel like printing out this article and rubbing it all over their smug, duplicitous faces?
I wonder if we should now take their place and start initiating lawsuits against the criminal Obama administration?
NRO removed this story. I saw it yesterday, but I didn’t read it yet. When I looked for it today, it was gone.
“NRO removed this story. I saw it yesterday, but I didn’t read it yet. When I looked for it today, it was gone.”
It’s still there. It’s in a Corner, so won’t show at the author’s archives. If you want to find somebody by name in the Corner - use find feature of your browser. What I have not found yet is Corner’s archives.
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