It was inevitable that Obama would disappoint on a number of fronts. Anyone running on a message of hope is inviting people to see what they want to see, rather than what’s there. Even where Obama told the truth about his intentions, as with the so far terrible policy in Afghanistan, lots of folks preferred to believe that he would do as they wanted.
Perhaps most disappointing has been Obama’s refusal to back away from the Bush Administration’s lawless legal positions on renditions, state secrets, etc. A reader sent me a link to this article, in which Glenn Greenwald ably sets out the rather sorry record of the Obama administration in this respect. Obama has even sided with Bush in trying to keep all those missing emails missing.
The truly sad thing is that this is an area in which a change of policy would not only have been the morally right thing to do, but a fairly easy thing to do. The “states secret” doctrine, for instance, was created to cover up governmental lies and deceit, and it has served only that purpose ever since. It’s not too much to say that you can rightly assume that there has been a governmental crime in every case in which it has been used. It has done more harm than good, by a long shot. Obama could have adroitly backed away from Bush’s excess, with only the usual suspects (e.g, Liz Cheney) sounding off about it.
If Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize has raised eyebrows in the left here in the U.S., it is because of precisely this sort of thing. Understandably, these are issues that people from other countries feel are of lesser importance. You can’t argue with their preference for Obama’s diplomatic style over Bush’s.
We can always hope that Obama will do as he implied he would: live up to the award that he’s received. He could easily start by reflecting on the fact that finishing the work Bush started is work unworthy of a Nobel Laureate.
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