for speaking the truth. You said you supported Obama during the campaign, based on the statements he made about his intents. We were lied to by Barack Obama when he said his administration would be different from previous administrations. Was this lie intentional? I think so. Obama is a consummate politician, and as such is a compulsive liar. That he was able to dupe enough naive people to vote him into office (with a little help from massive infusions of mysterious campaign cash) is a sad testament to both the gullibility of many Americans and the moral bankruptcy of our political system. Either way, we are now faced with a president who has an insatiable need to acquire more and more power, a total disregard for our Constitution, and the ongoing support of a state-run media. In other words, we're fucked...

I write that from a European perspective where people mostly view your president in terms of his foreign policies. And I think that our perception that Obama is a vast improvement over GWB is true regardless of "true intentions" about Afghanistan or Pakistan.

I can fully understand that those outside the US are concerned mostly with the apparent foreign policy of the US. However, the Obama justice system should be viewed as foreign policy "by a different means". Europeans should be very concerned. The US is the military power in the world; which other country can do much besides defend itself (and nuclear weapons are the best deterrent), or perhaps sometimes attack its neighbors? It is US troops that occupy the world, and it is their job to enforce the global US justice system.

The legalization of unconstitutional powers in the US should be the concern of everyone in the world. It should be clear by now that the supposed justification of these powers in defense of the home land, or cleaning up Bush's mess, is a lie, and that the truth is that they are useful for asserting global power.

Yes, this is so.

You are also correct on your point that in "times of war" that morality gets turned upside down and it becomes OK to kill, torture, rape, and so forth as long as it "is needed for our safety". We must win after all, eh?

We go on and on here about torture and the loss of civil rights. Only when we finally achieve peace will we be able to achieve liberty, freedom, and prosperity here at home.

Bank on it.

well, Henry Kissinger thinks so anyway.

Kissinger: Obama is like a chess player who is playing simultaneous chess and has opened his game with an unusual opening. Now he's got to play his hand as he plays his various counterparts. We haven't gotten beyond the opening game move yet. I have no quarrel with the opening move.

link @ sig

A legal line must be drawn between the cleanup of the Bush years and the reinstatement of law that begun on January 20th. It is imperfect, flawed and hypocritical. It violates the rule of law on every level.

It is also the only response to the lawlessness that preceded Obama and is now his inheritance.

Right. Because if the leap between THOSE two paragraphs isn't self-evident, then I just don't know what is.

Henry the K does like to mix his metaphors.

After decimating the populations of Asia and Central/South America, murdering the English language is child's play.

We've been told by some sources that torture is still ongoing at Guantanamo but not in the context of interrogation, rather being described a form of punishment. It has seemed to me that it's therefore been justified as not being torture because it's not being done as a part of interrogation and now Shepard tells us that it's justified when it's done for interrogation purposes. What's wrong with these people?? What are the odds that the GI apparently captured in Afghanistan by the Taliban is not going to be tortured? And we've justified it for them.

I'm wondering when are we going to acknowledge the obvious? We now live under a democratically elected dictator. The President can do anything he wants, our laws no longer apply to him. Granted we've been lucky so far in both Bush and Obama have been benign dictators. They haven't engage in massive round up of citizens. But if another terrorist attack happens, who knows what will happen? Congress is to blame for allowing this to happen. Bush violated so many laws, yet Congress refused to impeach. Thank you Pelosi for taking impeachment off the table. Now Obama feels free to continue in Bush's footsteps. Obama knows the dem-controlled Congress won't ever impeach him. I suggest we change the name of the office. It should no longer be president, it should be supreme leader. It's be more accurate.

Thus, Bernbart and friends, I do not doubt that in many respects, Obama is a vast improvement, yet in matters of civil liberties no amount of rationalizing can compensate for the bitter truth: Here Obama and his people are further down the slippery slope than even Bush and Cheney. Glenn's despair and harsh words are fully justified.

No doubt there are many areas where Obama is a vast improvement over Bush but not sure any and all of these other areas compensate for the deliberate undermining of the rule of law and civil liberties based on political calculus.

To date we can't know for certain the impact of any of Obama's quasi-political schemes yet. Congress and/or the courts may shut them all down. But we can discuss these as serious issues of concern about what Obama stands for and where he is taking this country. And we can use these discussions to get people active in trying to stop his schemes from being implemented.

If so, Is there some difference between yourself and those people that you can point to that would convince anyone that you, under those same circumstances, would not find yourself feeling tortured?

There you go with that Golden Rule stuff. You obviously don't grasp the transcendant power of Exceptionalism, American Style.