Barack Obama hasn't wasted any time getting to work on living up to his oath of office--you know, the part about protecting and defending the U.S. Constitution. First, to make sure there was no question about it, he asked Chief Justice John Roberts to the White House to administer the oath properly, to remove any uncertainly lingering from the jurist's mistake-filled performance at the U.S. Capitol on Inauguration Day. Then came the first repair work. Obama is getting busy with the glue and tape to put the Constitution back together after the shredding it took under the Bush-Cheney junta.
On the campaign trail Obama frequently promised to redress the wrongs initiated the past eight years. He spoke of restoring adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law. In the Inaugural Address he excoriated the "false choice" between our values and our defense.
Today he took four specific actions designed to restore government adherence to the U.S. constitution. This is most welcome. A government which does not respect and follow its constitution is a government on the way to dictatorship. The four actions were:
1) Ordered Guantanamo Bay shut down
2) Banned torture
3) Ordered a full review of detention policies and procedures
4) Suspended all military tribunal trials pending thorough examination of the history and propriety of the procedures involved.
He also followed new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the State Department. Hillary got a rock star reception from 1,000 State Department employees by telling them, among other things, that their professional expertise would be welcome once again, that this administration was serious about diplomacy and development and that she welcomed a good debate over honest analysis. After two terms of pressured analysis, imposed conclusions and forced compliance with official dogma our foreign service pros were ecstatic. If you saw this on television you can attest that the diplomats and analysts were rapturous.
This is all an exceedingly good sign of things to come. Honesty. Ethics. Principles. Free discussion. Legality. And all on the second full day in office. This is starting to sound like the United States of America again.
6 comments:
I was pleased to hear about the closing of Guitmo. It was a stain on liberty and fair trial, some of the very values we pride ourselves on. I think the world--the middle east in particular- got such a bad taste of America's treatment of foreign prisoners stemming from the Abu Ghraib scandal that I'm surprised Guitmo lasted as long as it did. However, under Bush's megalomania-induced "you will submit" strategy of foreign policy, I think I'm more surprised we didn't see more of them springing up.
Guitmo's brief, but controversial, history is one I think we're going to be looking at for a long time. The fact that, at only 8 years old, it's one of the most recognizable names in the military prison system, rivaling Leavenworth and NAVCONBRIG, is disheartening. Not to mention that it took till 2006, five years after JTF Guantanamo took over operations, for them to issue any sort of protection order for the prisoners.
I think I finally agree with Sen. Kerry when he said today;
“Today is a great day for the rule of law in the United States of America,” adding: “America is ready to lead again — not just with our words, but by our example.”
**forgot to add: I quoted 8 years meaning Gitmo's operations since the Bush administration issued Join Task Force Guantanamo in 2001, not referring to the Haitian refugee mess that went on from the 70s- 1995.
You are very well informed, Arielle. Thanks for commenting. Indeed, without moral authority our military power is hollow.
One thing that struck me as the former administration went about trying to justify waterboarding and other methods used over the past 8 years or so was one official who said that waterboarding shouldn't be tossed out just like that because it worked. My response was, Oh, it worked? Does that make it right?
And Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said after the botched oath of office: "We're wondering here whether or not Barack Obama in fact is the president of the United States. They had a kind of garbled oath. It's just conceivable that this will end up going to the courts."
Sometimes I feel like knocking on some of these guys heads and saying, "Hello, hello, McFly!!" Apparently, before Wallace so eloquently put his foot into his mouth, he didn't stop to think that the head guy of the courts is the one who caused the garbled oath of office in the first place.
So the guy who administered the oath will rule on whether he did it right? That's rich, Webfoot.
But Obama redid the oath, which, if I'm not mistaken, makes him the 3rd president to do so. The others fulfilled their terms without incident. I think fox may just have their, excuse my french, republican panties in a twist and can't find legitimate dirt on Obama so they prey on miniscule slip ups. Of course they wouldn't put their man Roberts in the fire, they'd lose their title as the Most (conservatively) Biased Name in News.
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