Obama and the Left

As the Obama Administration has in recent days taken a couple of steps in the civil liberties/national security area -- opposing release of torture photos and declaring an intent to retain some form of military commissions for terror suspects (while considering a system of preventive detention), the media has had some fun with a story line about the left's "souring," as Politico put it, on President Obama. There were similar stories in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. As someone who spends a fair amount of time with a pretty broad spectrum of the so-called left, I think it's a bogus narrative, and moreover is telling about which people are perceived to speak for the left and what issues they consider important.

I should say first off that while I think the president was dealt an awful hand on Guantanamo, military commissions, the misdeeds of the prior administration and the like, I do have some serious concerns about the discontinuity in several areas between his policies in this realm and those of the Bush Administration. I wouldn't use the kind of language in condemning them that the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU have been using, both because I think that is counterproductive with an administration that has explicitly rejected its predecessor's sweeping and disturbing claims of unlimited presidential power and because, more importantly, it fails to recognize real and profound differences both in policy and tone. But I think there are genuine concerns, and the human rights and civil liberties groups should continue to do their job and hold the Administration accountable. It is not their job to worry about the political environment in which Obama is operating, in which Guantanamo has become a "wedge" issue that has cowed many of his fellow Democrats in Congress.

That said, there is something a little strange about a situation in which the president gives a thoughtful, passionate and eloquent speech on terrorism, national security and human rights, which he did on Thursday, which is extremely forceful in its reiteration of the end to torture and the closing of Guantanamo, despite the drumbeat of criticism he is getting from the right, and two things happen. First, TPM Café, to take one prominent blog of the left, reports all day a steady parade of dismay from human rights and civil liberties organizations. Second, Dick Cheney in his speech just following Obama's, and Rush Limbaugh on his radio show the same afternoon, essentially accuse the president of waving a white flag to al Qaeda. Both were categorical and withering in their attacks. They heard the same speech that, say, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights did. Go figure.

The bottom line in terms of Obama's leadership is that most people are likely to think he got it right, and is striking the right balance, in the metaphor he seems to favor. I think for various reasons he may strike the balance too heavily on the alleged security side -- the torture photos are going to come out anyway some way or another; we have a perfectly good judicial system to try suspected terrorists; long-term preventive detention violates core notions of human rights and due process -- but I think he makes a thoughtful case, in the context of principles and values that I have come to trust in him, for why he lands where he does, and what he plans to do to safeguard rights given the choices he is making. David Cole, no civil liberties slouch, said as much in a Times blog post Thursday, and Philip Gourevitch, who published a book on the Abu Ghraib photos with Errol Morris, makes a strong case for Obama's position on the torture photos in today's New York Times. But by all means let these fights go on, and I hope our civil liberties advocates win most of them and that they don't have to find themselves too often in opposition to the president.

What I object to, though, is the characterization of this important debate as an abandonment or betrayal of the left by Obama. Here's why.

In the first place, I think Obama and the people around him are operating in entirely good faith. This is not some kind of political triangulation, a Sister Souljah moment designed to show the broader public that Obama can smack down his friends -- the kind of false test the center-right is always demanding of progressive politicians. Obama has genuine real-world issues to balance, and I have no reason to believe he has not arrived at these few controversial decisions genuinely and in a typically thoughtful and engaged manner.

Second, who decided that the civil liberties of suspected terrorists -- the toughest cases for almost anyone to figure out -- are the make-or-break issue for "the left"? Here we have an Administration that is making an all-out effort to pass national health care, and is nearer to getting it, or something close to it, than we have ever been, despite being in the middle of an economic crisis. The stimulus package and the proposed budget constitute the largest shift in social welfare policy -- the strongest series of steps to protect poor and working people -- since the Great Society over forty years ago. The long-delayed children's health insurance bill was signed into law, and with the full inclusion of immigrant children, thanks to the leadership shown by the White House. Great strides have been taken in changing our idiotic Cuba policy, with barely a whimper, thanks to Obama's exquisite sense of timing, and we are moving on various fronts to talk with our adversaries and deal respectfully with parts of the world given the back of America's hand by the Bush Adminstration. The EPA and Interior Department have taken step after step to strengthen environmental standards and conservation, after years of a government which substantially dismantled regulations. I could go on and on.

There is a category of concern among progressives that is not so much about where Obama comes out as about whether he is moving quickly or deliberately enough. Despite being behind the tide of history, no one seems to fault him on his opposition to same-sex marriage. But there are other obviously wrongheaded policies, like the ban on gays in the military, that he has not yet moved to reverse, despite declaring his intent to do so. A number of steps, including the one I mentioned above on child health insurance, have been taken to bring about a more humane approach to the treatment of immigrants, but immigration reform is still in the pipeline. He's outspokenly pro-choice, and repealed the global gag rule on his second day in office, but has not moved on promised pro-choice legislation. Same is true with respect to labor and the Employee Free Choice Act. On all these matters, time will tell. At this moment I choose to trust Obama's intentions while working to create a climate in which he will have the room -- and face the pressure, where necessary -- to do the right thing. He is doing so many other things at once, particularly on key issues of vital importance to poor people, that it is hard to fault Obama for not moving more quickly on immigration reform or a few other matters that are guaranteed red meat for the far right. To judge from the Cuba policy and a number of other issues, the president has a better sense of timing than most of his critics. (Not to mention a more genuinely democratic base of support, and a considerably more diverse cabinet and White House staff than virtually any institution in the "progressive infrastructure," but I'll leave that discussion to another day.)

Another development that seems to be causing anxiety among some progressives is the Supreme Court vacancy created by David Souter's resignation. Here no one expects the president to appoint someone hostile to civil rights and liberties, but there are a number of voices calling on him to begin to counter the forty-year rightward trend on the court by selecting someone of avowedly liberal views, someone who will be a balance to Scalia and Thomas, even if their voice may be raised for many years in dissent. I certainly think the court needs that, and over his four- or eight-year opportunity to shape the court, I hope the president makes some picks like that -- Harold Koh, for example, once he's spent some time at the State Department. But I think it's unlikely he'll do so now, guaranteeing a battle royal in the Senate when he is trying to move health care, the budget and other matters. And by temperament and instinct, Obama doesn't seem to think that way. That's fine with me. But if it ends up as Elena Kagan or a similarly non-ideological warrior, I expect some of my fellow progressives to cluck about missed opportunities.

If I have any significant zone of worry about the Obama administration, it is not so much about discontinuity in national security policies as discontinuity in financial and banking policies. Some good steps have been taken, like the credit card reform bill he just signed (despite its being saddled with appalling pro-gun provisions, since Western and Southern Democrats are no less in thrall to the NRA than Republicans), but I have a lot of disquiet about the Summers/Geithner axis and the possibility that the markets will recover, if not thrive for some time, without the necessary corrective actions to an out-of-control financial sector that these guys had as much as anyone to do with creating, without genuine accountability, and without recovery in the "real" economy. We have progressive institutions that are strong and vocal on human rights and civil liberties, and that is vitally important. But we lack as many strong institutions and voices on economic justice, or the voices that are there lack the access to media.

If what the left in America is most concerned about is poverty and inequality, Obama is shaping up as an extraordinary champion and deserves more vocal support. But that the media, looking as always for an intramural fight, focuses instead on an important but limited set of issues that have to do with identity and rights (arenas in which I have worked and written for thirty years), and can find dissatisfaction there, it is because what they see as the principal organs of the left have little to say or do about the issues of most concern to the lives of poor and working people. We have lost ground steadily in debates over the Supreme Court, and the role of judges generally in recent decades, because we have allowed those debates to be framed almost entirely in terms of issues like separation of church and state or abortion. I want a court that forcefully upholds those rights. But I also want one that is, as the president has put it to the derision of the right, "empathetic" to those who have been economically marginalized in a society all of whose key institutions have steadily sided in recent years with the rich against the poor. If we can get people to care about the Supreme Court not just because it is going to stop some Alabama judge from putting the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn, not just because it is going to force the government to treat a suspected terrorist more fairly, but also because the court has a critical role to play in fairness for working people, we will have made a genuine and important change in this country's politics.

Because I think Obama has a deep understanding of all this, despite doing some things -- and he will do more, no doubt -- that we may be bound to oppose, I have more confidence in him at this juncture than in most of his liberal critics. So this is one fairly satisfied liberal (or whatever we call ourselves these days) right now.

Comments

[research]

Centrist, such ad Obama and the DLC,

Try to find the center of all the participants world views on each subject.

This give the power to the extremists: conservatives.

Change requires making some enemies.

[Anthony Kennerson]

Now, I can acknowledge that Obama is still preferable to the Bush/Cheney regime....but as one who believes in Leftist visions of egalitarianism and social equality and peace, he has thus far been nothing less than a disappointment. But, he never said from the beginning that he was anything other than a corporate centrist DLC Democrat, and his overtures to progressives were nothing more than general missives to get their votes, only to rule from the "center" once elected.

In short, Obama is like every other Democrat elected in this system; institutionally beholden to corporate power and the political-­military-i­ndustrial-­financial establishment...and no bit of complaining about that will change his positions.

If progressives and Leftists want to blame anybody, they should look in the mirror and ask why they continue to support a party (the Democrats) who continuously uses and abuses them and undercuts their values and visions; and why they haven't made a complete break and developed independent institutions closer to their principles, as opposed to the entire political Establishment both Right AND Center. Depending on a Center-Right party to deliver liberal/progressive principles will never create the kind of change progressives desire; it will only get them thrown under the bus again and again and again.

It was for politicians like Obama and Bill Clinton that I left the Democrats and became an Independen­t...hopefu­lly other Leftists like me will see the light and follow suit.

[markmac]

I voted for Obama becuase after reading his book I decided he was an intelligent and thoughtful man. Thus far he has done nothing to change my view of him. Korea just detonated another nuclear bomb; Iran tested a mid-range missle and seems determined to become a nuclear power itself; Pakistan stands on the brink, etc. I suppose after reviewing the photos and looking at the suspects in Gitmo, President Obama has decided to move carefully. This is exactly what I had hoped for. I hope he continues to do what he thinks is best for both our liberties and out security.

[wsblake]

I voted for Obama for two reasons- the Kennedy endorsements were huge for me and second, I believed that there would be radical shifts in foreign policy. Escalation in Afghanistan and refusal to release the torture photos don't instill a lot of confidence in this area. I think he's instead trying to placate a truly lunatic right wing fringe- Cheney and the conservative talking heads. This is a big mistake.

[TrekBear]

I concur with your assessment of Obama's Administration. It usually takes 6 months to a year for a new Administration to put its stamp on US government and policy.

We should be thankful wehave a competent and thoughtful President at this time in our history. By way of comparison, the Stygian stables, from the Labors of Hercules, were sparkling clean (before Hercules' clean-up) compared to the mess Obama inherited.

[TruthJusticeForAll]

Very nice, except: Civil Rights: Obama supports no longer requiring Miranda Rights be provided arrestees.

Foreign Policy: Europe will soon recognize Obama is the New Boss, Same As The Old Boss, just as many here are beginning to see that.

Government Reform: Obama agrees to the payment of $Bs in corporate bonuses to executives of bailed out companies.

Iraq/Afghanistan: Does not remove a single soldier from Iraq. Maintains open ended commitment.

Humanitarian:Flops & decides to keep Gitmo open. Decides on a new unconstitutional class of detention. Life imprisonment because the government,m without proof decides someone might be too dangerous to release.

CAFE: Hammers final coffin nails in US Auto Industry. Bankrupts Auto Industry so they can shed health care & pension benefits for workers who spent their life time earning them. Cuts funding for Hydrogen Cell technology.

Drug Policy: Within 48 hours of announcing the DEA will no longer raid medical clinics, the DEA raids a medical clinic.

Health care: Single Payer advocates not allowed to sit at the discussion table.

Supreme Court: Suspect he will appoint a NAZI to placate Cheney & avoid a filibuster by Republicans & moronic Dems.

Nuclear Weapons: Like his predecessor intends to sit idly by as 2 of the most insane regimes in the world obtain nuclear weapons for themselves & the terrorists they support, fund & supply.

Welcome to the 21st Century. China's Century.

[lastpost]

Barack:
With regard to your recent pronouncements regarding torture, and current condemnation of North Korea’s decision regarding nuclear detonations.
If you choose not to lead by example in all matters, who sets the standard for other nations to emulate?
And what then differentiates one act of Obama-nation, from the equally abhorrent acts of some other nations? No matter how personally unpalatable. You cannot, in all conscience, expect states to put the interests of the species before that of their own populations. Unless you do.

[viper234]

Your argument is weak. The war wages on in Iraq and will no doubt be extended based on "rising levels of violence." The war in Afghanistan rages on even though there is no al-Qaeda and the Pakistani military has launched an offensive in its own country against 2000 Taliban fighters. America has no reason to be in the region. Obama's rationale of America's presense in Afghanistan and Pakistan is deeply flawed. And make no mistake, "preventive detentions" will not be limited by government to so-called "suspected terrorists." It will be a legal framework to allow the detention of anyone at any time for whatever reason government sees fit. This a the line that can not be crossed. We are not here to "trust public servants." We the People are here to demand accountability for our government's actions. To "trust the government" means putting our own liberty at risk I don't care how "well meaning" the president might be. Many Americans understand this and will fight to prevent the government from further expanding the powers of the Executive Branch. Enough is enough.

[PatrickforO]

Obama has done a very good job so far. Let's not forget that he can't just 'make change' without the backing of Congress, and this entails debate and, yes, compromise. We are moving in the right direction, maybe not as quickly as some would want, but the right direction nonetheless. I have confidence in Obama because he is a good and moral man. If we give him eight years, we will have a country that still has problems, but is once again the beacon of hope for the world.

[Helzapoppin]

That is almost word-for-word what the Bushies said.

[WorldofTomorrow420]

"I have confidence in Obama because he is a good and moral man. " I thought so too, until he started backtracking furiously on important human rights issues after his election. Now I believe him to be just another slick politician, and that we have bought a pig in a poke.

[Ken Allen - Huffpost Blogger]

It is highly misleading to write off basic principles of human rights as “the civil liberties of suspected terrorists.” It is not just that, in the absence of standards of evidence “suspected terrorists” might be any of us whom government or one of its agents decides to suspect. It is that the standards being challenged, those set forth in the Fifth through Eighth Amendments to the Constitution, are fundamental to the rule of law as it has been understood in the United States. Preventive detention of indefinite length is not a practice any society can practice and still lay claim to the descriptor “just.” No civilized society, least of all one with our Constitution, can abandon habeas corpus, a foundation of our legal system traceable to 1215, without calling into question its commitment to the principles which make it worthy of the title “civilized.”

Not long ago, progressives were mocked and belittled for challenging the need to go to war in Iraq. Now they are mocked and belittled for challenging the need to abandon basic principles of human rights. But those principles are more essential to our identity than curbing any military expedition, abominable though it may be.

[fumes]

''Not long ago, progressives were mocked and belittled for challenging the need to go to war in Iraq. Now they are mocked and belittled for challenging the need to abandon basic principles of human rights.''

not to worry.. the mockers and belittlers of the world do that with everybody.. no really..

so do not take them seriously.

[FearlessFreep]

But it's depressing to see liberals doing the mocking and belittling.

[BonfiyaBabylon]

I think it gets worse than that....it aint just Guantánamo Bay anymore....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html

America...­.....you'r­e stll asleep.

[Pema]

Bravo Ken!! well said. and thaqnks to the other posters standing up for human rights..
Rise Up!

[FogBelter]

Mr. LaMarche, I think the issue is far more basic. I think the Left has projected it's hopes on a political party that is center-right in it's majority make-up. In America we currently have two "viable" political parties ... the Republicans are Corporate Right-Right in alignment in composition, while the Democrats are Corporate Center-Right. In short, there is no Progressive, Liberal, Left party in the United States. President Obama is a Democrat, so the best we can hope for is a Democratic Party outcome.

Let's not pretend that the Left has any political leverage in American Politics ... we have a handful of genuine progressive, liberal, left elected officials, but that doesn't translate into anything but a superficial voice. Unfortunately for the country.

[Roses]

Until we have proportional representation we are stuck with trying to find concensus in one of the political parties; either Republican or Democrat.
Our system is really a 'winner take all' system and we need to change that to have viable multiparties.

Read this for more information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_(United_States)

[martha99]

I second that. Leftist principles cannot be upheld in a country like America. I really wish our democrat President could do something more substantial rather than just speeches and dialogues. Sad, that the fate of the country is with the rightists and every issue will reflect the rightists. www.joytiz.com has all the hits and misses of the Obama administration.

[Paul]

Escalate war in Afghanistan - Mistake
Closure of Gitmo - Incomplete
Failure to prosecute those who authorized torture - Mistake
Economy - Jury still out

So aside from making some nice speeches and acting Presidential, we have gone from Change You Can Believe In to Change that does not Seem to Matter.

Come on Obama - do what we elected you to do - and fire anyone who says it can't be done.

[SJBrown]

What have you done to change America in the last over the last 4 months?

[Snowball]

As far as the closing of Guantanamo goes, you should be looking at how your congressman and senators voted, not blaming Obama.

[Roses]

.This is all in 4 months, mind you.

Civil Rights
Obama signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Reducing discrimination based on gender, age, religion, or race.

Environmental
Obama signs a mercury reduction pact with 140 other nations. The policy reverses roles with George Bush and sets mandatory requirements by the United States.

Obama signs the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009, which serves to protect two million acres of land and creates a new system of land conservation for the Bureau of Land Management.

Foreign Policy
Obama travels to Europe and begins to heal rifts in America's image abroad.

Government Reform
Administration tells Citigroup bank it is “unacceptable” to pay for a $42 million dollar luxury jet when they have received $45 billion in bailouts from taxpayers.

Bans the exception of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from accounting the deficit. This results in a 2.5 trillion dollar increase in calculated deficit to the United States.

Announces Earl Devaney to oversee the oversight of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Lifts ban on embryonic stem cell research. A major move in changing the politics of research and science in the United States.

Humanitarian
Obama orders the close of Guantanamo Bay facility

Environment
Raises cafe standards on automobile emmissions



Drug Policy
Eric Holder correctly acknowledging that the use of marijuana for medical purposes is a states issue

Healthcare
Begins discussions on healthcare. Will start organization effort June 6, 2009

[Jazzman323]

I agree that Obama made the right decisions to continue the Bush terror policies and not release pictures and prosecute the interrogators. Not only is this the right decision for our country, it vindicates Bush and Cheney and the policies they initiated.

[sandman323]

Continue to believe that, if it makes you feel better.

[libslayerguy]

If Obama is supposedly continuing the "Bush terror policies" as you claim, then why are Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh tag-teaming him and saying that he has made the country less safe? As the article says, they accuse him of "waving the white flag to Al Qeada". This winger talking point is getting used up, time for a new one.

That last sentence exposed you for the winger partisan that you are, because at the end of the day, vindicating W and winger ideology is all that matters to a winger. It is always party politics first and foremost.

[Jazzman323]

Cheney and Rush are speaking out against Obama to set the record straight. It is what is right, not political.

[Roses]

Your attempt at irony falls flat.

[McFlipFlop]

My thoughts exactly, and so well written. Bravo!

[MarionWatts]

'who decided that the civil liberties of suspected terrorists -- the toughest cases for almost anyone to figure out -- are the make-or-break issue for "the left"?'
__________­__________­____

I can tell you who will. There are scores of European lawyers, especially in Britain, not to mention Clive Stafford-Smith, who's qualified in the US, to mount huge legal claims for compensation for any and all of the suspected terrorists who are released to European countries. Binyan and Begg are already mounting huge claims in the UK, and they're being advised by Stafford-Smith.

Obama has a lot on his plate. He's got to prioritise. A lot of progressives seem dismayed about his failure to decriminalise cannabis as well as the issue of legalising gay marriage. Whilst both these issues are important, Obama has bigger fish to fry at the moment; and I think, those issues in particular, are best achieved on a state-by-state basis, until they're eventually incorporated in Federal law.

FFS, the man can't run before he learns to walk.

http://emiliawahoo76.blogspot.com
http://myspace.com/virginiadem

[Roses]

Marian----
President Obama is prioritizing. Right after the election when he still was President-Elect he polled his supporters as to what their priorities were. I think the top 3 items were healthcare, environment, and economy. Those are indeed what he has really focused upon.
I am still confused about the civil liberties thing as I am sure alot of people are. I think the best thing that people can do is to communicate with their representatives and to support Rep. John Conyers idea of a 'truth commission'. If people don't get behind it, it will probably go nowhere.
As for the private lawyers, I think it would be a great idea.

[TruthJusticeForAll]

Commissions are political WHITE WASH. We need, but will not have a Special Prosecutor.