“The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s decision to keep open the prison at Guantanamo Bay. . . . The poll shows that 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats — and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats — support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed.”
Repulsive liberal hypocrisy extends far beyond the issue of Guantanamo.
A core plank in the Democratic critique of the Bush/Cheney civil liberties assault was the notion that the President could do whatever he wants, in secret and with no checks, to anyone he accuses without trial of being a Terrorist – even including eavesdropping on their communications or detaining them without due process. But President Obama has not only done the same thing, but has gone much farther thanmere eavesdropping or detention: he has asserted the power even to kill citizens without due process. As Bush’s own CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden said this week about the Awlaki assassination: “We needed a court order to eavesdrop on him but we didn’t need a court order to kill him. Isn’t that something?” That is indeed “something,” as is the fact that Bush’s mere due-process-free eavesdropping on and detention of American citizens caused such liberal outrage, while Obama’s due-process-free execution of them has not.
Power creates its own legitimacy. To weaken corrupt governments, you can either focus on undermining legitimacy or power, hopefully both. Suckered into the voice gambit, the anti-war, pro civil rights movement is nothing more than the cat’s paw. They thought they could lay bare the illegitimacy of Bush era policies, but because they did nothing to check a raging hulk, they’re stunned, back peddling, mumbling. The protests of 2007 have faded into a faint whisper. It is the dawn of acquiescence and denial.
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