President Obama is treating Super-PAC money the way he treats every other moral dilemma. He says, to paraphrase, "I will not keep my word because of Republican behavior".
Source: Presidential about-face
One of his first promises to American voters was that he would close the Guantanamo gulag. He would do this in his first year, but it turned out that Republicans wouldn't let him and that was that.
I was reminded of how offensive Guantanamo is to the foundational ideas that made America great when reading an article on unpersons in unhistory by Noam Chomsky. Here is an excerpt that personalizes what Guantanamo means to a human being, and what the president's promise-breaking entails:
"the first Guantanamo case to come to trial under President Obama: that of Omar Khadr, a former child soldier accused of the heinous crime of trying to defend his Afghan village when it was attacked by U.S. forces. Captured at age 15, Khadr was imprisoned for eight years in Bagram and Guantanamo, then brought to a military court in October 2010, where he was given the choice of pleading not guilty and staying in Guantanamo forever, or pleading guilty and serving only 8 more years. Khadr chose the latter."
Source: Anniversaries from "Unhistory"
This is like George Washington shrugging when asked about a fabled cherry tree, is it not?
Addendum: Kevin Drum is a writer I respect and he takes a different view of the Super-PAC story. Here is a link to his viewpoint:
Not hypocrisy
Hey may be right up to a limit, and that limit might be drawn by the consequences of your actions on others.
When you take bribes you validate bribery. So the question is, does validating the actions of people like Jack Abramoff harm society more than it will benefit from another four years of president Obama?
Time will tell, but my instincts tell me no.
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