Ryan Cooper

I hoped slightly that this new president wouldn't be a lying prick. Unfortunately: But even granting the significance of those first-week measures, the Obama administration has aggressively defended, justified and embraced the overwhelming bulk of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies -- the exact ones that caused liberals and Democrats to object so vehemently over the last eight years: imprisonment with no trials, maintaining a legal black hole at Bagram, military commissions, renditions, warrantless eavesdropping, claims of state secrets to prevent judicial review of presidential lawbreaking, legal immunity for all but the lowest-level war criminals, abuse-guaranteeing Patriot Act powers, impenetrable walls of secrecy in the national security context. I suppose it's inevitable. Power is a ratchet and all that. Still a pisser though.

UUUUUUUUCK. I was prepared to be betrayed by Obama. But not like this.

Politicians suck. We in America trust too much in the supreme leader of power--we would rather hand the reins over to someone else rather than yank the power back ourselves. Cause, well, it's hard , and a huge pain in the ass to go out and organize and build coalitions of Congresscritters and write letters, etc. It sucks. But we're learning now that no man can be trusted with the reins of the most powerful country on earth. Inevitably, he will fail us all. Power is a ratchet--no man will give up the power his predecessor gained for him. It must be wrenched back from his grasp.

For fuck's sake. Other than creating an illusion of transparency and accountability, what's the point of having laws that purport to restrict what the Government can do if political officials just retroactively waive those laws whenever they want? What's the point of having a FOIA law if the Government will simply pass a new law exempting itself from FOIA's mandates any time it loses in court and wants to conceal evidence anyway? And what conceivable rationale is there for limiting the President's new secrecy powers to post-9/11 photographs? Given that anything which reflects poorly on our Government can be said to endanger our troops and American citizens, why stop here? Why not just have a general power of suppression whereby the President can keep any evidence secret as long as his Defense Secretary decrees that its disclosure will "endanger" the troops?