Seems their starting to turn on Obama....
Posted on 05/29/2009 10:19:03 AM PDT by cycle of discernment
Ted Rall: It’s increasingly evident that Obama should resign
May 28, 2009
by Ted Rall
We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama's inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
From healthcare to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn't have the 'nads to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?
Obama is useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now--before he drags us further into the abyss.
I refer here to Obama's plan for "preventive detentions." If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in "prolonged detention." Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama's shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.
In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street. Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people's lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can't control, what Orwell called "thoughtcrime"--contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.
Locking up people who haven't done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to "preventive detention" is an outrage. That the President of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.
Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed Bush, I won't follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.
"Prolonged detention," reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon "terrorism suspects who cannot be tried."
"Cannot be tried." Interesting choice of words.
Any "terrorism suspect" (can you be a suspect if you haven't been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried. Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners "cannot be tried"?
The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this "entirely new chapter in American law" in a boring little sentence buried a couple past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: "Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted."
In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a "lack of evidence" are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, "tainted evidence" is no evidence at all. If you can't prove that a defendant committed a crime--an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime--in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.
It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush's lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign.
© 2009 Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate and is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.
America did not deserve “O” but it sure has heck does not deserve “Biden”. Is this guy pushing for Pelosi?
Then we get Biden...eeeek!
On this issue I agree with Ted...
cool beans.
Obama need worry not, for Ted Rall is a world class moron.
How about Ted Rall doing something manly for a change? Such as challenging ObaMao to a duel with sawed-off shotguns at five paces.
Unbellyfeelingingsoc..
First of all, only a liberal nitwit like Rall can call an armed pirate a 'child'. And second, any affected nation anywhere in non-territorial waters has jurisdiction when it comes to one of its flagged vessels being pirated. International law, Teddy baby. I thought liberals love international law.
Memo to Rall: B.O. never had any patriotism to begin with. ...at least not for the U.S.A.
We have officially - officially - entered the Twilight Zone at the moment hell has frozen over, because the absolutely impossible has happened: I found something that that utter POS Ted Rall said that I agree with. Good Lord!
Opeachment Opeachment
oh no... not Biden
Stick to your day job Rall.
Opps, sorry you were just fired. Is my face red.
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2009/04/22/tall-laid-off-at-united-media/
For the record, if Bush was proposing this, I would have been against it.
Afraid the brown shirts will be coming after YOU?
“On this issue I agree with Ted.”
Well, if Obamachev isn’t left wing enough for him, who does that leave? Pol Pot?
Sorry, no summer vacation for you - your TARP money was used by the recipients to speculate in commodities, rather than be lent in the general economy. So now oil is shooting through the roof and it's too expensive for you to take a drive trip anywhere. Bummer, dude! Shouldn't have voted for the Kenyan.
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