First ZACKlyRight, then WSJ, then NYT, now Sen. Rick Santorum
Below is a column by former United States Senator Rick Santorum that appeared in the extremely liberal Philadelphia Inquirer on April 23. He does not give me credit for plagiarizing my ideas.
Following Bush's Playbook
Despite what Obama told liberals, he is embracing some once-hated policies.
By Rick Santorum who borrowed extensively from ZACKlyRight
About two years ago, candidate Barack Obama made a series of promises to the radical antiwar crowd so he could outflank Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. It worked.
Last week, President Obama was justly pummeled for proudly announcing that he was keeping one of those promises by disclosing the details of our interrogation techniques to our enemies. I guess that is one way to make sure an administration won't get accused of failing to connect the dots after a terrorist incident: Setting policies that guarantee it won't have any dots to connect.
As bad as that decision was, I commend Obama for breaking another one of those campaign pledges.
As a candidate, Obama attacked President George W. Bush's invocation of the "state secrets privilege," which allows an administration to refuse to disclose information in court on national-security grounds. Obama's campaign Web site claimed the Bush administration "ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other previous administration...."
But less than a month into the new administration, Obama's Justice Department relied on the state secrets doctrine to argue for dismissal of an ACLU suit over Boeing's transportation of prisoners to countries where they were allegedly tortured.
Obama's erstwhile supporters threw a fit. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, complained that "candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil-liberties issue."
Not to be deterred, the Justice Department has invoked the state secrets doctrine once again in Jewel v. NSA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it's suing the National Security Agency and other agencies "on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records." A recent foundation press release was headlined, "Obama administration embraces Bush position on warrantless wiretapping and secrecy."
But why did such a liberal president turn against the left on this? Here's the answer from his Justice Department: "An examination ... determined that attempting to address the allegations in this case could require the disclosure of intelligence sources and methods that are used in a lawful manner to protect national security. The administration cannot risk the disclosure of information that could cause such exceptional harm to national security."
Allow me to translate the Beltway-speak: Obama's new intelligence team told him he would have to be out of his mind to turn over the nation's most sensitive secrets to his friends at the ACLU and other radical, left-wing lawyers. If our sources and methods were exposed, our ability to prevent terrorist attacks in America would be greatly diminished.
But Obama has another problem. You see, last year, when he was demagoguing the issue, his supporters in the Senate were copying his act. Sens. Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy, and Russ Feingold introduced the "State Secrets Protection Act" to restrict the Justice Department's use of the state secrets privilege.
The bill, of course, was purely partisan. It had only one Republican cosponsor, Arlen Specter. But guess who else cosponsored it: Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. So Obama is supporting policy that his vice president and secretary of state are on record as opposing.
In spite of Obama's apology tour in Europe and his inability or unwillingness to defend America against socialist despots at last weekend's Summit of the Americas, most of his administration's national-security decisions have been downright Bushian.
He has almost unilaterally escalated our military presence in Afghanistan. He has launched Predator attacks on al-Qaeda in Pakistan. (Preemption, anyone?) He has found that, just as the Bush administration claimed, Guantanamo meets Geneva Conventions standards. And he has said he would hold the worst enemy combatants captured overseas without trial. And - the greatest broken promise of all - he continues to maintain Bush-like troop levels in Iraq.
This pattern of high-profile announcements pandering to the antiwar left and weak-kneed passivity toward Third World anti-American tyrants, coupled with quietly forceful national-security policies, looks like a riff on the words of another young, turn-of-the-century president: Apologize profusely and wield a big stick. (End of column by Sen. Rick Santorum that borrowed extensively from ZACKlyRight.)
Below is a column by former United States Senator Rick Santorum that appeared in the extremely liberal Philadelphia Inquirer on April 23. He does not give me credit for plagiarizing my ideas.
Following Bush's Playbook
Despite what Obama told liberals, he is embracing some once-hated policies.
By Rick Santorum who borrowed extensively from ZACKlyRight
About two years ago, candidate Barack Obama made a series of promises to the radical antiwar crowd so he could outflank Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. It worked.
Last week, President Obama was justly pummeled for proudly announcing that he was keeping one of those promises by disclosing the details of our interrogation techniques to our enemies. I guess that is one way to make sure an administration won't get accused of failing to connect the dots after a terrorist incident: Setting policies that guarantee it won't have any dots to connect.
As bad as that decision was, I commend Obama for breaking another one of those campaign pledges.
As a candidate, Obama attacked President George W. Bush's invocation of the "state secrets privilege," which allows an administration to refuse to disclose information in court on national-security grounds. Obama's campaign Web site claimed the Bush administration "ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other previous administration...."
But less than a month into the new administration, Obama's Justice Department relied on the state secrets doctrine to argue for dismissal of an ACLU suit over Boeing's transportation of prisoners to countries where they were allegedly tortured.
Obama's erstwhile supporters threw a fit. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, complained that "candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil-liberties issue."
Not to be deterred, the Justice Department has invoked the state secrets doctrine once again in Jewel v. NSA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it's suing the National Security Agency and other agencies "on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records." A recent foundation press release was headlined, "Obama administration embraces Bush position on warrantless wiretapping and secrecy."
But why did such a liberal president turn against the left on this? Here's the answer from his Justice Department: "An examination ... determined that attempting to address the allegations in this case could require the disclosure of intelligence sources and methods that are used in a lawful manner to protect national security. The administration cannot risk the disclosure of information that could cause such exceptional harm to national security."
Allow me to translate the Beltway-speak: Obama's new intelligence team told him he would have to be out of his mind to turn over the nation's most sensitive secrets to his friends at the ACLU and other radical, left-wing lawyers. If our sources and methods were exposed, our ability to prevent terrorist attacks in America would be greatly diminished.
But Obama has another problem. You see, last year, when he was demagoguing the issue, his supporters in the Senate were copying his act. Sens. Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy, and Russ Feingold introduced the "State Secrets Protection Act" to restrict the Justice Department's use of the state secrets privilege.
The bill, of course, was purely partisan. It had only one Republican cosponsor, Arlen Specter. But guess who else cosponsored it: Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. So Obama is supporting policy that his vice president and secretary of state are on record as opposing.
In spite of Obama's apology tour in Europe and his inability or unwillingness to defend America against socialist despots at last weekend's Summit of the Americas, most of his administration's national-security decisions have been downright Bushian.
He has almost unilaterally escalated our military presence in Afghanistan. He has launched Predator attacks on al-Qaeda in Pakistan. (Preemption, anyone?) He has found that, just as the Bush administration claimed, Guantanamo meets Geneva Conventions standards. And he has said he would hold the worst enemy combatants captured overseas without trial. And - the greatest broken promise of all - he continues to maintain Bush-like troop levels in Iraq.
This pattern of high-profile announcements pandering to the antiwar left and weak-kneed passivity toward Third World anti-American tyrants, coupled with quietly forceful national-security policies, looks like a riff on the words of another young, turn-of-the-century president: Apologize profusely and wield a big stick. (End of column by Sen. Rick Santorum that borrowed extensively from ZACKlyRight.)
posted by Zack at 1:51 PM
1 Comments:
His comments certainly jibe with yours. He makes excelelnt points. Hope that Philly crowd is listening.
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