Yes, but praise the Lord for Rachel Maddow. There is still one articulate voice of reason left on American TV. Who knew there was anyone left who could tell the difference between indefinite preventive detention and the rule of law.

Echo echo

"It's 2002 all over again."

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's the same craven, calculating DC Democratic cowardice overriding all common sense and decency. Remember how in the campaign when people brought up the quote from Obama saying he didn't know how he would have voted on the Iraq War Resolution? I think we know now. Just like Hillary and all the rest, he would have voted yes in order to appease the anger and wrath of the Republicans. And what did the Democrats get for that? Renewed and doubled up attacks and wrath from the Republicans. They will never, ever learn.

First, I want to say that I wish Obama would ask Holder to assign a special prosecutor to investigate and punish the guilty. Just do it and let the chips fall where they may, already. Having said that, here is my analysis and conclusions for why Obama is moving as he is. It is not intended as defense, nor condemnation of Obama's decisions, only my observations about what I see as his motivations.

Okay, I may be diving in to the pool without my trunks on, but here goes:

Obama is, IMO, a pragmatist's pragmatist. He is a highly goal oriented personality who will make whatever sacrifices he deems both necessary and RATIONAL to achieve his top goals. He has been very clear and consistent about what are his top goals ever since the primaries; Energy independence, Health-Care reform, Education improvement, and execution of a Brent Scowcroft realism school type of foreign policy.

Obama does hold very certain and inviolable principles, IMO - those being the achievement of his clear and oft stated top goals. He is an ends/outcome oriented individual, as opposed to an means/process oriented one. Obama's principles are embodied in his goals, and include the achievement of those goals. He would only be lacking in principle if he changed or otherwise gave up on achieving his goals, and in priority order.

Obama is not a political "triangulator" moving with the political winds, as some have suggested. He is a pragmatic achiever who makes decisions and gets shit accomplished that would seem impossible to most of us, such as winning the Presidency despite being a black guy with a Muslim sounding name.

Many are judging Obama's political character from within their own 'non-pragmatic achiever' value context, and have thereby found his character lacking in principles. However, if our principles help to define what is most important to us. What we are willing sacrifice and what we are not, and set the relative priority of those important things, then Obama's pragmatic achievement behavior is based on solid principles. You or I may not agree with those principles, but they are certainly there, are clearly articulated, and are easy to track. To understand what Obama is doing, IMHO, requires one to stand in his value context, of a pragmatic achiever.

To be very clear, I'm not saying that I believe Obama would do anything to achieve his top goals. That would define him as an extremist. I think that pragmatic achievers differ from extremists in that extremists take a hard-irrational approach to getting what they want, while pragmatic achievers take a soft-rational approach. Both do share being ends/outcome focused. In addition, I wouldn't assume that Obama won't go after the many goals we may wish were a higher priority, and that he also has stated he values once he's secured those top goals. I suspect that much cognitive dissonance comes about when Obama says he values the rule-of-law, transparency, and such but then seems not to make decisions which mirror those values. I believe that those values just occupy a lower rung of Obama's goal priority ladder. Hard-nosed prioritization is another defining characteristic of the pragmatic achievers I've known.

President Obama will do whatever is rational (yes, to him) to achieve his top goals. Which is why, for example, he is eager to adopt the ideas of conservatives - as long as THEIR ideas lead to realizing HIS goals. As long as all roads lead to Rome it doesn't much matter which road is taken. He has been completely open in saying what those TOP goals are, and has been consistant and ficused in the pursuit of them.

First, you don't speak for the left. If the left were to send a message, the message would likely be "we don't agree with each other".

But your hectoring, panicky response misses the point that we need explanations of policies, and somebody has to rebut the rightwing propaganda.

Lefty bloggers and interest groups spend all of their time handwringing about whether Obama is letting them down. After the 1000th time of hearing how "disappointed" and "just like Bush", many of us wonder, why are you still here?

More importantly, behind the scenes pressure on pols only goes so far. Dick Cheney and the GOP have been spinning their propaganda for weeks, mostly unopposed, in the public sphere. Meanwhile groups like HRW which should have been excoriating Cheney yesterday on the TV, are talking to TPM about their "disappointment".

The left risks losing the public debate.

"Obama laid out a vision yesterday of the war on terror which seems to give the war on terror and anti-terror fear the same pride of place and thematic importance in the list of US foreign policy priorities that it had under Bush."

This speech was to allay fears about his anti-terror policies, which were being routinely criticized by the establishment as appeasement of people who want to kill us in our beds, or some such nonsense. He gave the speech at the National Archives to advance the theme that we would continue to fight terror, but also adhere to our constitutional principles and the rule of law (I'm nor arguing here that preventive detention, etc. actually do adhere to those principles, only that this was a central point of his speech).

I think your totally missing the intended political effect of the speech. And I think your conclusion that this terror policies are "now barely discernible from Bush" is a ridiculous oversimplification of his remarks.

I would not be so fast to judge until what is classified to protect Valerie Plame's colleagues, is known. There are arguments all over the place, but without evidence that is otherwise classified, we cannot see the whole picture Obama sees.

Now that fact can either be a pall of smoke or a light of wisdom.

Since we don't know which it is as to the classified information, we are left with going with what we know and factoring in our blind spots. Factoring in blind spots is what fashions the centrist, however, the constituents must have patience to see where this goes. Whether to have that patience goes to the constituents' trust in the candidate they put in the Chief's hat.

We aren't a patient people, and considering the news cycles and mass ADHD they are marketed for, the fear is that everyone will forget the issue until it is an isolated, in-actionable tidbit of history that will sell future movie scripts.

In foreign policy there is deception as tactic. When Americans view American foreign policy from the standpoint of the foreign citizen affected by it, there is an element of imagination about how the foreign citizen must feel about it. This is not always accurate.

When in Afghanistan it looked like order had finally come, there were quite a few Western reports of 'normalcy' breaking out. This was a news cycle. In it, common Afghans celebrated their new freedoms absent the Taliban. Now, the fear of the Taliban has returned. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" seems to be a motto of self-preservation in most countries of the world. (Surely Arlen Specter saw it that way, didn't he?)

Which, given human fickleness, fear, distrust and variability, is the best executive policy? And, what may a president do to check the Senate?

What I don't think I understand yet is whether Obama wants to close Gitmo because he wants to bring an end to what Gitmo does, or whether he just wants to move what Gitmo does somewhere else and close Gitmo only as a PR stunt, because Gitmo has acquired a bad reputation.

Bob Gates said we are closing Gitmo because it is "tainted". So is that all?

"the manifesto for the new Global Internationalist Party"

Got a draft? and is that the name you are going with? Why not something a little less 19th century. Maybe Earth United?