Give Obama Credit/Blame Where it is Due

So, just to clarify: It’s the Catholic speaker who was for birth control as “economic stimulus”; it’s the unapologetically pro-choice president who is
intervening. Incredible.

Like Margaret, I choose to take it as a hopeful sign that Obama did this rather than dwell on what a maroon Pelosi is.

On the other hand, it looks like the huzzahs were premature for Obama’s supposed rejection of torture. As I feared, the changes, while a step in the right direction, leave the door wide open for the Executive to go on exploiting Bush’s hard-won battle to be a tyrant if the President pleases.

• “Obama’s Executive Order bans some — not all — US officials from torturing but it does not ban any of them, himself included, from sponsoring torture overseas,” informs Allan Nairn — The Torture Ban That Doesn’t Ban Torture. The author suggests “his policy change affects only a slight percentage of US-culpable tortures and could be completely consistent with an increase in US-backed torture worldwide.”
• “The institutions of the Imperial Executive remain intact,” writes William N. Grigg — The Torture State Endures. The author notes that “all Obama’s executive order has done is to suspend the CIA’s use of patently illegal torture techniques and to move ‘expeditiously’ to close down illegal torture facilities — pending the announcement of new policies on these matters by a special panel that won’t report its findings for at least six months.”

Of course, as we know from the history of abortion and euthanasia in this country, there is absolutely zero chance that a precedent for evil, once established under one administration, will lead to further expansion of that evil under future administations. Now that we are governed by Him Who is Without Sin, we need not fear ever again that Caesar will misuse his powers to harm innocent people. If there’s any lesson the 20th Century should have taught us as Americans, it’s that Caesar can be trusted to look out for the interests of innocent people. So keep reading those NRO articles about the glorious promise that torture holds for keeping us all safe.

HT: Western Confucian