President Obama is now commander in chief, and he has an obligation to the troops under his command that exceeds any promises made to liberal interest groups during the campaign. No one should question that Obama is doing this for the right reasons, but it must also be noted that the president, as Politico's Josh Gerstein explains, wants "to avoid giving Republican critics new fodder for attacks."

There are elements on the left that would expose the president to political danger, and the troops to mortal danger, only to see the last administration implicated in any kind of abuse. The president should be praised for resisting those elements even as his actions also serve his own self-interest. But President Obama has many other important decisions in front of him that put his campaign statements at odds with his responsibilities to the safety and security of American troops and the American public. Americans should hold out hope that President Obama may yet reverse himself entirely on the closure of Gitmo and that he will revive the use of harsh interrogation techniques if and when all other options are exhausted and the country is in imminent danger of attack. For now though, it's enough that President Obama seems to be growing in office.

 

EXCERPT (May 9, 2009): Colin Powell is not only not a war hero, he's actually implicated in war crimes from two different wars --- as one of the "White House Principals" who watched the CIA act out torture techniques for their approval and as one of the men who tried to cover up My Lai. (He was involved in Iran-Contra too.) And that's not even taking into account his pivotal role in energetically selling the Iraq war with bogus intelligence. Certainly, the man cannot be separated from Dick Cheney on that issue.

He was one of the most powerful people in the Bush administration and he failed time after time to step up and use his vast personal popularity to stop themor slow them down. He is, in fact, the worst chickenshit of the bunch since he had a separate power center and a special authority as an ex-general. Cheney may have been the chief architect, but Powell was the chief salesman and cover artist.

The Bush administration people are all running for cover now that they've been publicly exposed and repudiated. And it's fun to watch their circular firing squad. But the fact is that they were all culpable, as were their enablers in the press. It's clever to play them against each other, but it's short sighted. These are issues of state violence and fundamental human values and it's a mistake to not be consistent about such things.