And all these things go on

[solarbird]

Mr. Obama had quite the week last week in general, really - and I was a bit surprised at how little I heard about this in my friendslist, but, well. First out of the gate, Mr. Obama broke a campaign promise, and suppressed more evidence of American torture. Andrew Sullivan thinks - or hopes, really - that Mr. Obama is playing rope-a-dope with torture supporters, but between that and retaining Mr. Cheney's military commissions at Gitmo and appointing a commander with a known history of torture - including torture to death of prisoners - to Afghanistan, and threatening the British government with withholding of intelligence if they let American torture practices come to light in their courts, I have to wonder, of Obama voters:

Do you feel suckered yet?

By the way, The Weekly Standard crowd has just been thrilled, as has The Wall Street Journal's crazy, crazy editorial board, and the Sheep Chorus that make up the beltway media have all been rallied together to celebrate Mr. Obama's embrace-and-extend approach to most of Mr. Bush's policies as "centrism" and - most gratingly of all - the Good and Necessary Rejection of the Civil Liberties Left, in a Sister Soulja moment. Wretched, as ever.

By the way, the American public still wants torture investigations. Not that this stops the political media from lying, continually, about that.

Meanwhile, this video is making the rounds - Jesse Ventura talking again about torture. You might remember how he said last week give him an hour with a waterboard and he'd have Dick Cheney confessing to the Sharon Tate murder - which is the entire point, of course. Not about getting people to tell you the truth, but getting them to tell you whatever you want to hear, so you can then use that against them. It is the opposite of truth.

eta: Oh look! Guess what it looks like won't get funded! The closure of Gitmo. Guess what gosh-golly-darn-it just can't be closed 'till funding!

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

+1 on the second paragraph.

I still feel suckered. It's a definite improvement, but I was hoping for heads on pikes and sabots in the machinations of the blue handed gestapo. I realistically thought we'd get a reversal of most of the politics of torture and domestic terrorism. Looks like we're getting slightly more than jack.

I keep hearing the bit that he's daring us to make him do it. What I'd love to do is have one big rally in DC and say, "HEY! Just do it already!"

Alas, life is rarely that simple.

[adularia.livejournal.com]

That's a really tempting thought, actually.

I bet I wouldn't succeed at nailing a copy of his inauguration speech, or a debate transcript, to the White House doors...