Just what information since inauguration day that the Obama administration has been shown. Names of individuals, countries, allied governments that we have been digging up all sorts of economic and military data on. The way Jay Rockefeller succumbed to Richard Cheney's will so quickly has always made me think they were blackmailed with info they couldn't divulge based on it's content, regardless of the way it was captured.

Protecting the secrecy of the methods and the methods of secrecy were just a ruse to keep the uber valuable, while it's a secret, info from getting out. It's about the content not the delivery for me.

Where is everyone?!?

She can't be confirmed quickly enough. Over at Emptywheel, because so many positions still remain to be confirmed, they've coined the term "Obama/Dead-Ender Administration" to describe those who are writing these horrible briefs. Bush "Dead-Enders" are thought to be still enough in abundance that they are still having their voices heard.

Of course, that doesn't excuse the end product. Holder is in place and these cases are at a high enough level that one would hope he is looking at the final product. That he is letting these outrageous documents come out of his department confirms my initial fears that he would give in too readily to the "powers that be", which, in this case, are the powers of the Executive.

I would hope that Johnsen will be a strong voice pushing back against the "Dead-Enders" and even Holder himself, but much damage is being done while Congress delays confirmation.

That Obama is an extreme disappointment in all of this goes without saying...

I'm ready to start impeachment proceedings. It is clear enough already, as Glenn has documented, that Obama is NOT going to reverse many of the abuses of the Bush Administration. He's fighting hard to preserve them.

Wiretapping without warrants, picking up "enemy combatants" and holding them indefinitely without trial are apparantly OK by Barack. These are bright red lines. Violating these principles is simply intolerable and unacceptable. This guy already deserves impeachment, regardless of how enlightened his policies might be in other areas.

I was beginning to worry.

Over at Emptywheel, because so many positions still remain to be confirmed, they've coined the term "Obama/Dead-Ender Administration" to describe those who are writing these horrible briefs. Bush "Dead-Enders" are thought to be still enough in abundance that they are still having their voices heard.

I absolutely do not believe that excuse. Marcy is right that some Bush holdovers are involved. But these are the highest-profile cases the DOJ has -- ones of immense political controversy -- and there is no way any of this is happening without the active involvement of Eric Holder, other top DOJ political appointees, and the White House itself. They confirmed as much in the wake of the Jeppesen controversy and there's just no way that mid-level career bureaucrats are making these decisions in these cases -- no chance at all.

The Al-Haramain case has been a brewing controversial for awhile, like the Jeppesen case. If it were a matter of one brief being filed right after the Inauguration that did nothing but repeat Bush arguments, I'd be receptive to this claim. But this is extreme action on the part of the DOJ in a highly politically controversial setting - no way it's happening without high-level DOJ approval, at least.

in the hopes that it would be rejected by the courts and save him the trouble of having to renounce this odious power himself and subject himself to "soft on terror" accusations, I have to say that I simply do not understand why he's not only doing this, but doing it with such apparent ferocity and even desperation. Why is he persuing the protection of all of these Bush-era executive abuses of power with such intensity?

Is it because he actually believes in them himself, and has for some time, essentially having lied through his teeth for years, and especially during the campaign?

Is it because, having become president, he's now enamored of powers that he had previously rejected, and is loath to give them up?

Is it because he reluctanlty now believes that they're essentially to national security, for reasons that he's not at liberty to divulge?

Is it a sort of political tradeoff, to get the GOP off his back on matters pertaining to national security and not give them the opportunity to go after him as "soft on terror", in order to give himself room to tackle all the other obviously serious problems he faces?

Is it political and personal cowardice, a fear of conflict and a willingness to avoid it at all costs, even to his own conscience and integrity?

Is it a matter of simply not caring that much about such matters, and deciding to just continue with and defend the status quo?

Or is it something else, something that none of us has considered?

I literally have no idea, and just to show how confused and bewhildered I am over this (although, really, I shouldn't be after his hypocritical flip-flop on the FISA bill), there's still a part of me that wants to believe that he's doing it on purpose, in the hopes that it gets rejected by the courts. But that's looking increasingly delusional, as instead of giving up after giving it the old "college try", he keeps at it.

A part of me is starting to wonder whether this man might not be some sort of Jekyll and Hyde monster, a progressive (more or less) by day, and an authoritarian by night. It seems like most of his actions since taking office have either been great (Gitmo, SCHIP, Lily Ledbetter, budget), or terrible (kissing up to Repubs, Gregg, Geithner, Daschle, all these DoJ attempts to preserve the Bush legal doctrine). It's like there's a part of him that gets off on having vast, even uncheckable power, and is determined to get, keep and use it.

I think that there's a side to Obama that most of us have missed so far, that belies the inspiring and uplifting public speaker and promoter of more or less progressive policy, and is much, much darker and more worrisome, a man unto himself who sees himself as above and superior to everyone else, and thus, in his mind, justified in doing as he pleased, everyone's opinion be damned. There is a cock-suredness to his confidence that I sometimes find to be almost creepy, like he's looking through rather than at people, and is occupying his own superhuman sort of strata that is beyond challenge.

It's like that scene in Lawrence of Arabia (a man who didn't lack for ego, confidence and self-love), when he admitted that he actually enjoyed killing people, and it frightened him. I'm not accusing or suspecting Obama of something this awful, but I am starting to suspect that he genuinely gets off on having essentially unlimited power. Someone who gets off on that is a very dangerous person indeed, because they've basically put themselves beyond the moral reach of everyone else. They have become their own moral judge, and that's just dangerous.

Please, someone, tell me that I'm overreacting to what is likely just poor judgement and cowardly behavior on his part, and not something that is indicative of a genuinely tyrannical nature, however "benevolent" it tends to be. Because this guy is starting to scare me.

And why is he doing this?