Obama's approach is different., but unfortunately both the far right and far left only see issues in Black & White, and ignore gray areas. Life and governing is about the gray areas.

Look more closely at Obama's approach.

Obama's approach is different., but unfortunately both the far right and far left only see issues in Black & White, and ignore gray areas. Life and governing is about the gray areas.

Look more closely at Obama's approach.

Obviously, you didn't listen to the interview or what Charlie Savage had to say -- that's obvious in part because your substance-free comment reveals total ignorance of what he said, and in part because you posted your comment before enough time had elapsed for you to have possibly listened to the interview, even if you began listening the first second after I posted it.

I thought you thought the NYT was the authority on everything. Here's a NYT Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter saying their policies are largely the same. He's part of the Far Left?

The fact is that when member of party (Y) implements or promotes policy (X), it is (Y) that determines whether most people object or praise, rather than (X).

is to avoid responsibility by spreading it around. Good management technique in a competitive environment. Utterly dishonorable and disastrous for our reputation in the world and for our civil rights, also yes.

GG,

It never ceases to amaze me how many important topics you cover on a regular basis. Quite frankly, I can't keep up even though I hit your page as many as five times in one work day! (Well at least I'm not wasting time playing solitaire.)

Although I would be hard pressed to improve on any of the arguments you put forth, I wonder if it would be an improvement in format if you maintained a live-list of "unanswered questions" (sounds like "unclaimed territory") that are distilled out of the columns you write. Many of your better comments-section contributors here could make suggestions.

I know you don't control the page format for salon.com, but given that you have worked this enterprise up to the point that many of the right important people are reading it, I would like to see something like the following in an always-presented side-bar:

Unanswered Questions for Obama on civil liberties:

1. Other than the executive order to cease using torture from that point on,

2. Why are there no investigations into the prior administration's activities on the systemic torture of detainees that resulted in the deaths of dozens if not hundreds of them?

3. Is it your position that the evidence that crimes were committed is not sufficient to warrant an independent investigation, or that no investigation will take place because it is not politically expedient?

Unanswered questions for NPR ombudsman:

1. Why are you avoiding us?

Unanswered questions for Dana Milbank:

1. Why are you in high-dudgeon over Huffington Post's one good question when you can't say who Jeff Gannon stayed overnight with many times in the White House?

and so forth.

I'd like to add three questions you didn't ask, that I think Savage would have struggled to respond to.

1. You agreed with Savage that the legal arguments against the Bush/Obama terrorism policies have partly or largely abated, since Congress has now legalized some of the worst of the practices. But that tacitly admits that large segments of the government were involved in felonious lawbreaking, prior to Congressional authorization. Rather than resolve the legal questions, this argument actually exacerbates them by recognizing and identifying that laws were broken. I was sorry you didn't pursue this angle. Savage would have been forced to admit that either a) government officials got away with a series of criminal acts or b) he believes that retroactive legalization should automatically carry immunity from past lawbreaking, which is a flawed legal argument to say the least.

2. You allowed Savage to get away with the classic journalistic "he said/she said" dodge. He hid any criticism of Bush and Obama administration lawbreaking behind a "well, some civil libertarians were concerned..." facade. As you've argued (convincingly) time and time again, questions of state surveillance, kidnapping, torture, and murder are not the sorts of things a moral human should be able to slough off as the strict purview of a few stray "civil libertarians". An uninformed person listening to that interview could be forgiven for thinking that all the fuss was about some sort of bureaucratic snafu, or some hapless couple getting detained for a weekend. Although it appears that Savage disapproves of the Bush wiretapping, and he's obviously working hard to expose it, he distanced himself from outright criticism of it in a way that struck me as morally bankrupt, and I've have like to have seen him challenged on that. As you've said before, outrage is appropriate when outrageous acts are committed, and even "objective" journalists should confront this fact.

3. Savage placed a fig leaf over Obama's efforts to expand government powers of torture, surveillance, and detention, when he claimed that "saying the right things, and seeking government authorization through proper channels eventually amounts to something" (I paraphrase). That is a curiously apologetic defense from Savage. After agreeing that Obama is doing everything possible to strengthen and institutionalize Bush's abuses, and is in fact doing A BETTER JOB embedding those toxic concepts (torture, warrant-less surveillance, indefinite detention) in our basic government structure than Bush did, Savage still managed to squeeze in a version of the the "well, it's OK though, because Obama's doing it for the right reasons" argument. When he vaguely implied that Obama should get some benefit of the doubt--any at all--because his intentions are better than Bush's, I would have liked for someone to remind him where the road paved with good intentions leads.

That Obama's election would result in mainstream acceptance of Bush's criminal policies was already obvious in the summer of 2008 (remember telecom immunity?). The bi-partisan consensus against liberty that we are now witnessing is one of the many predictable political outcomes of the anything-but-McCain mentality that self-described "liberals" adopted during the presidential election. The cowardice with which liberals pursued their agenda at the time found its most perfect expression in the total media blackout of the Nader campaign. This blackout, in which liberal bloggers were willing participants, remains one of the most shameful journalistic scandals in recent memory. If liberals can be always be relied upon to cast their votes against those who represent their views, it's hardly surprising that they are being ignored. You get what you vote for.