In his address yesterday on American foreign policy, President Obama said this:
I understand that it is no secret that there is a tendency in Washington to spend our time pointing fingers at one another. And our media culture feeds the impulses that lead to a good fight. Nothing will contribute more to that than an extended re-litigation of the last eight years. Already, we have seen how that kind of effort only leads those in Washington to different sides laying blame, and can distract us from focusing our time, our effort, and our politics on the challenges of the future.
He said this after having spent almost the entire speech faulting the Bush administration for all manner of failings. If anyone exhibits the Washington tendency to point fingers, surely it's the President. It's worthwhile noting, I think, that his much maligned predecessor never once indulged what must have been an enormous temptation to blame his own predecessor for the problems facing the country in 2001. Obama frequently insults and demeans the Bush administration and makes himself look small every time he does it.
And then there's this:
We see that, above all, in how the recent debate has been obscured by two opposite and absolutist ends. On one side of the spectrum, there are those who make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism, and who would almost never put national security over transparency. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who embrace a view that can be summarized in two words: "anything goes." Their arguments suggest that the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means, and that the President should have blanket authority to do whatever he wants - provided that it is a President with whom they agree.
Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right. The American people are not absolutist, and they don't elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems. They know that we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security, so long as we approach difficult questions with honesty, and care, and a dose of common sense.
This is a fine example of Barack Obama's adroit employment of the straw man technique. There is no one, at least as far as I'm aware, who is an absolutist on torture except those, like the President himself, who insist that it's always wrong. Those who support the use of waterboarding do so only in certain very restricted circumstances and only if it's administered in certain highly restrictive ways. To suggest that the proponents of "harsh interrogation" believe that "anything goes" is a misrepresentation of their position that is as hyperbolic as it is unfair.
It's not unusual for the President to make allegations which ascribe to unnamed persons positions that no one really holds, but he diminishes his credibility further every time he does it.
RLC