I believe the Obama admin's argument that they're working their way through the Bush GWOT mess

[BurtWorm]

And that's why their approach might be looking somewhat chaotic and self-contradictory at the moment. The key phrase they use to characterize the Bush mess, which reassures me that their approach is neither naive nor amateurish, is that it was, according to the NY Times today, an “ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable — a framework that failed to trust in our institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass.”

This rings completely true to me, based on what I know from having read countless foreign policy articles and several books by James Risen, Thomas Ricks, Ron Suskind and others. It explains why the Bush approach was actually the chaotic one and why they were so desperate to get a firm grip on the policy and keep everyone else away. They simply didn't have a clue what to do, didn't have a handle on any of the nuances of counter-terrorism policy within a constitutional framework. They thought they could make it all up and bluster their way through. Now that rational, pro-Constitution people are in charge, it's like adults coming into the playroom after years of unsupervised "creativity" and trying to figure out how to put it all back in order again.

Here's the key passage from the NY Times piece:

...

According to administration officials, he will contend that the Bush administration’s policies were an “ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable — a framework that failed to trust in our institutions, and that failed to use our values as a compass.”

But almost as soon as he finishes, television networks will probably cut away to another speech, titled “Keeping America Safe,” by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney has emerged as one of the new administration’s staunchest critics on everything from detainees to diplomacy.

Both speeches are occurring as Congress wrestled loudly this week with detention issues, and rebuffed the president over financing for closing down the detention center. Republicans and Democrats alike argued that the White House had yet to outline a realistic plan for what to do with the remaining detainees after the center is closed.

David Axelrod, a chief adviser to President Obama, told Sheryl Gay Stolberg, one of our White House correspondents, that the speech would be an effort to clear up misperceptions about decisions being made surrounding issues at the detention center and with detainee prosecutions.

“People don’t understand that much of what we’re doing is being driven by the courts and whether he had decided to close Guantánamo or not, he would have to respond” to the judicial rulings, Mr. Axelrod said of lawsuits and litigation brought by civil liberties groups and others. “We’re in the process of cleaning up the accrued issues of the last six or seven years and they’re complex and thorny and they’re going to require a series of actions.”

But Mr. Obama also will use the opportunity of this speech to remind the public, Mr. Axelrod said, that “at the end of the day, Guantánamo is a net loser for us — that the impact that it’s had around the world is a negative symbol for the United States that jeopardizes our safety in the long run.”

Separately this morning, another Obama administration official offered some details of the broad ground the president plans to cover. While acknowledging that the nation is at war with terrorists like Al Qaeda and the worldwide threats of terrorism and loose nuclear weapons, Mr. Obama plans to use the Archives and its contents as a touchstone to remind the nation that constitutional rights must be respected.

...

[joeybee12]

1. I cut them slack on Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Gitmo...and all that s**t, because yeah,

it is a mess...however, I cut no slack on Don't Ask/Don't Tell...could be over in an instant without any controversy, and on the banks and the economy they are messing it up even more.

[BurtWorm]

3. I'll give you that.

I'm talking specifically about Guantanamo, torture, detentions, etc.

[joeybee12]

6. Yeah, in many ways, these issues are no-win...Bush and his cohorts

have phucked things up so badly.

[Political Heretic]

2. I don't believe anything anymore.

[Cha]

4. Yeah, and to quote the Rude Pundit..

"Stop acting like the other guy is still President, you poor, traumatized bastards."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5696214

[Badgerman]

5. Adopting the policies and precedents of Cheny/Bush is NOT ...

'working through it!' There have been too many complete reversals by this administration, and I for one am getting DAMNED disgusted. Did we have an alternative? No, but that does not mitigate the utter disaster that is seeping out of Obamas' administration when it comes to anything pertaining to Cheney/Bush malfeasance, corruption, and outright criminal policies and actions.

To Obama, get back on the straight and narrow, or get the fuck out of the way! A Bush 2 is exactly what we and the world do not need!

[BurtWorm]

7. They can't do what Bush/Cheney did and just wipe the slate clean and start where they want to.

Unfortunately. Bush/Cheney's wiping the slate clean is what caused the whole problem in the first place. They junked precedent entirely, setting a dangerous precedent that will tempt all executives in the future to act as though the past has no bearing on the present.

It's very easy to give up on them based on mediated accounts of what they're up to. They have a difficult task. We're used to thinking of the executive as incompetent boobs. The Obama people are not incompetent boobs. They're dealing with a mess unlike anything any of us has ever had to deal with. They deserve our patience. For now, anyway.

[DJ13]

8. ......and start where they want to

Sure they could.

Republicans dont have any qualms about doing complete 180 degree turns in policy, if the Democrats had any balls they wouldnt either.

Theres nothing wrong with completely starting over when staying the course only continues policies that are illegal.

[BurtWorm]

9. What needs to be done is fixing the system so Bush/Cheney's can't do what they did

They should use the law to do it, and bring lawbreakers to justice. But at the same time, they have to clean up the Guantanamo mess, the torture mess, the detention mess, etc. And deal with every other gigantic fucking mess the Bushholes left us.

It's possible that the only way to clean it all up is to wipe it all clean and start over. But what will prevent the next idiot lucky enough to get into power from doing it all again? Do they just scrap the constitution and start all over? Or do they try to make it harder for assholes and idiots to wreak the kind of havoc the Bushholes wrought?

[Badgerman]

10. How many times will these things have to 'wiped clean'? thats the rub...

A difficult task, bit it MUST be solved NOW. If not the precedent is set such that each administration in the future can get its own Gonzales/Ashcrofts ad nauseums, each new Vice-President will be able to set up his own government and on and on. This president is more culpable if he does not act, for the reason that he is an accredited Constitutional scholar. To abrogate the Constitution, even for a smidgen, by such a person, is in and of itself tantamount to a treasonous act.(oh, sit down all you twirly-eyed sychophants, I didn't say he had done a treasonous act, I sad tantamount to).

what I feel should, and can be legally and constitutionally sound is this. The White-house can lend a hand in pressuring Congress to go forward on a special prosecutor/truth commission with subpoena powers. Congress when investigating persons or such not presently in office, act more like a Grand Jury with investigative powers. Once the facts are in and it is determined that reasonable evidence exists for prosecution the report and ALL the facts are handed to a prosecutor (in this case the Atty General, DoJ.

The problem that is current is that Obama and Holder do not want any prosecutions. The reasons for this stance are somewhat murky, or at best a complex mish-mash of reasons, extending from the purely pragmatic political ones(which have no standing as political reasons play no part in the upholding of the laws of the land), to some of the more esoteric arguments about the powers of the individual branches of the federal government. All of this is 'way to many' for the average citizen, and so demagoguery, obstruction, and plain old every day lying is being produced at all levels and afrom all directions.

[BurtWorm]

12. Two things to keep in mind.

1) Things take time--especially intricate, complicated things, like massive cleanups.

2) There is no law against saying one thing and doing another. It's the grease of politics, as a matter of fact. Saying you won't prosecute is not the same as not prosecuting.

[Badgerman]

13. I STRONGLY disagree with what you just said, and here's why...

"1) Things take time--especially intricate, complicated things, like massive cleanups."

I thought I had addressed this. But I will add in the matter of law, particularly criminal law, there is only one coarse fro 'clean-up' as it is called...due process. That is LEGAL due process, not political or any other due process. If an act looks to be criminal an investigation MUST be made to determine if it is legal or not. Then, if the facts indicate illegality a prosecution in an appropriate court MUST be brought. Period! That is maybe the most fundamental tenet of our judicial system, in fact our system in its entirety relies on that 'Rule of Law'.

2) There is no law against saying one thing and doing another. It's the grease of politics, as a matter of fact. Saying you won't prosecute is not the same as not prosecuting.

Actually there are many exceptions to that: if someone with the authority states publicly that no prosecution will be forthcoming, it can taint ANY evidence that might be found subsequent and from a source who without such public acknowledgement might not have provided the evidence. In this case lets say a close associate wrote a book, or gave an interview that contained damning evidence about one of the Bush administration main characters in the belief that their friend was now quite safe from prosecution. You see even a non-legal person can discover this, and so it would be expected that a legal scholar such as Obama, and some of his advisors are certainly aware of it. Obama has in effect made the matter even MORE complex than it originally was or is. He FUCKED UP! on purpose or accidently, but he most decidedly fucked up.

Forgive the strong language, but this issue has gotten out of hand, and the only doorway to its cause is through the front door of the Whitehouse.

[ThomWV]

11. Good, let him fix the fucked up wars - but ALSO let him prosecute criminals

The two are not the same thing. He has wars to get out of to be sure, he has political problems on every corner of the globe to deal with too, but all of those are ongoing activities. We need as much to take care of the criminal activity that is now over but haunts the nation as much as we do the continuing problems.