A good call:
President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge’s order, and had changed his mind.
The president “believes their release would endanger our troops,” a White House official says, adding that the president “believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court.”
Nothing new would have come of this but propaganda for the enemies of civilization. Apparently, the administration has determined that the increased risk to our troops – something he should care about both personally and politically – outweighs the delicious opportunity to further harrow his increasingly irrelevant predecessor.
I’d call that growing in the job.
Of course, the ACLU will have no such compunctions, and I fully expect to see this argued before the Supreme Court in time. At which point, all the proper hands will have been washed of responsibility for whatever comes after.
This just makes me laugh and laugh.
Very hard for me to say anything positive about BHO, but his action in this case was the right one in my opinion.
Motives? Who knows? My ability to interpret the chicken bones is offline at the moment.
In an effort to be fair… this is the right thing to do. I am wont to say that he was obviously persuaded by far more “in-tune” advisers (probably those wearing a uniform) and I am less inclined to think he would have made this proper decision leveraging his own philosophical strainer… but hell at least he was willing to be persuaded! I have to give him credit.
-JC
The POTUS as The Supreme/Ultimate Wind Vane…it’s getting mighty interesting. Best
There should never have been any issue on this. What positives could possibly come from publishing photos that shed no new light on this tiny little affair that was blown WAY out of proportion the first time around? Answer: None, Nada, Zip. So, with all the political capital The One has at present, why not just cap it with an Executive Order, declare what he now has, then move on? The ’storm’ of protest would be relatively quiet, limited in scope, and would end quickly (as if any of the lefties really want to cause a stink for their guy).
They mismanaged this thing which got it more play than it should have gotten. Finally a good decision, or at least a better result than would have been the case. But it bears watching.
I hate to criticize the guy when it looks like he is trying to do the right thing, but my understanding is that he could classify the photos by executive order and end the matter completely.
All he has done so far is decide to keep fighting the matter in court, so if the ACLU wins, Pres Obama can honestly say he didn’t want the photos released.
Dave Thul/
Agree with you completely. I read a legal analysis somewhere–don’t remember where, (such is the nature of the internet and I forgot to book-mark it) which detailed under what of several sections of the law (FOIA) he has the power to do so in an executive capacity as well as the fact that Congress is capable under the law’s own current provisions in amending the statute to carve out exceptions retroactively for national security reasons in addition to any executive action taken or not taken.
So you’re right, if he lets it go the court route, either way–he can plead to his detractors and critics from left OR right that his hands were tied. Obama’s
punting and doing the functional equivalent of voting “present” again, rather than showing/exercising the sort of executive leadership which the law allows him to do.
Well, yes, but: Using a national security classification to protect what is not inherently classified but merely embarrassing (no matter how violent the predictable reaction of the predictably violent) seems like poor governance, to me.
Once you start classifying embarrassments, that’s a whole with no bottom.
Lex/
True enough, though the ‘ole “classification of embarrassments” has a looong and (dis) honorable tradition in ALL governments since governments have existed–right up there with death & taxes and the world’s oldest profession.
In this case, however, I’m compelled to disagree with you Lex. Unless this involves something new other than Abu Ghrab, it sheds little new light but much un-needed heat. If they ARE revealed what will we as a society have learned that we didn’t already know? Now, I full realize that critics will say we won’t know what we didn’t know until we see the photos–but isn’t that what we elect our Representatives for–to exercise judgment in our stead? Under the theory we, as individuals, have neither the time nor the expertise to attend to every problem of state, so we elect those to whom we entrust/invest with the authority and responsibility to use THEIR judgment on our behalf?
And while I’m neither unmindful nor dismissive of the argument you make Lex–it has a very rational basis backed by a long history of misuse of the classification system–I feel that in this instance, given what we have seen the reaction of Muslims has been world-wide to even cartoons, it is perhaps better not to release them. I know this is a “slippery slope” problem, but then, in a way, ALL major government decisions are of the slippery-slope variety if taken to their extreme ultimate logic.To my mind the “art” of government for the successful practitioner is to somehow demonstrate the judgment to manipulate the angle of the slope and the friction coefficient thereof in order to successfully navigate any given political mountain. That’s what they get paid the big bucks for, right?
I don’t see the ACLU needing to go to court over this, the photos will just be leaked(ooopsie!)anyway.
Obama will be reportedly “furious”.
guy/
You’re probably not far wrong….which makes Curtiss pretty right about the deep-six option–except Obama won’t be the one to do THAT, rest assured.
[...] the other side of the issue, Neptunus Lex thinks this was a “good call“: Nothing new would have come of this but propaganda for the enemies of civilization. [...]
There’s no need to give AQ any more recruiting tools. Good call, indeed.
I’m with VX. I’d simply order the photographs destroyed and when the SCOTUS gets all outraged about obstruction of justice I would demand to know what justice is being served? Are there any criminal cases pending that require these photographs?
If the NSA can get away with destroying the videos of the interrogations then why can’t DoD destroy pictures of no legal significance?
CIA, not NSA. NSA are the good guys with the good intel. I wish the CIA was a cover story for a real intelligence organization.
I’m afraid that I can’t quite jump on the praise bandwagon. Like many of Obama’s contradictory statements, the first iteration (release the photos) gets the attention and the praise, while the walkback (uh, not so fast on the FOIA) is largely ignored by the media and the public.
He gets the credit for the first round, but the blame for the second never seems to materialize…
http://www.newsun.com/TheBear.html
The only reason to release the photos I could think of is: In case a detainee sues for compensation photos regarding his case should be available for court use only. As the United States would the accused and the witness at the same time, it’s a case for another fable.
Even if he did it for the wrong reasons, it was the right thing to do.
But, I am suspicious about his motives and only time will tell.
Let’s hope he’s growing into the job. We can all criticize because it’s a free country, but we all have to live with the consequences of his policies.
I don’t agree with many of his viewpoints or policies, but I hope he succeeds for the benefit of all.