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Obama Website Slams Secrecy Claim That Obama Now Invokes
A great catch from our old friend Greg Sargent over at the Plum Line...
Barack Obama's campaign website still cites the fact that "the Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court." The site declares: "Secrecy Dominates Government Actions."
This despite the fact that the Obama administration has already invoked the state secrets privilege in three separate cases, including one claim so sweeping as to quickly produce an expert consensus that the Obama-ites are following directly in Bush's footsteps, as we reported yesterday.
As Greg notes:
This underscores what a major turnabout this is and how difficult it will be for the Obama administration to justify this politically going forward. Yesterday White House spokesman Robert Gibbs visibly struggled as he defended the current use of the state secrets privilege while saying Obama still condemns Bush's use of it.
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Josh
Zachary
This is disgraceful. Not only does Obama's DOJ continue Bush's use of state secrets, they also invoke "sovereign immunity" - going much further than Bush in defense of illegal wiretapping. The left in this country needs to start being more vocal with our criticism of Obama. He isn't one of us; he's another corporate imperialist disguised in a friendly marketing campaign. Why let the right-wing nutjobs monopolize the criticism? Wake up, Obama supporters. He was never what you thought he was.
April 10, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Time will tell on that. He still has a chance to do the right thing. But I agree he should be held accountable for his actions (and non-actions).
April 10, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hope the president's next press conference is soon.
April 10, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
MNPundit,
Unless bloggers or foreign reporters are allowed to ask questions, the only value I see in a WH press conference is the entertainment value provided by inept, overpaid White House "reporters" who ask inane questions. I'll bet that not a one of the Usual Suspects will ask about this issue.
April 10, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Change we can believe in my ass. I knew this would happen just from Obama's biography. He hasn't gone into any organization and implemented any "change". When he went into the Harvard Law Review, reformers complained that he deferred to the status-quo right wing members too much. When he went in to the Senate, he was a good junior Senator from Illinois, listened to his seniors and was no Democratic iconoclast.
He talked change and hope because that was a good ways to get elected but when it comes down to it he is quite conservative and has surrounded himself with status-quo players. Geitner is Paulson with more hair. Gates didn't even get up out of his chair. In general it is probably wise to put experienced people in place, but Obama received the mandate to implement change, if he fails to do so, then events might whirl out of hs control. He said his administraton was the only thing keeping the angry mob and the pitch forks away from the bankers, well I would clarify it that it is the hope in his administration that has performed that miracle. That "hope" is turning to dust with every action that displays that the same old insiders will win out in the current administration as in the old administration.
April 10, 2009 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I will be very interested to hear from Obama on this issue. At the moment, I can't figure out what the administration is thinking. And in this new error of 'transparency' the public deserves to hear the argument for this position from Barack himself -- in detail. It will be very important for liberals NOT to come up with excuses for Obama on this, but to keep pressing the issue and exposing the hypocrisy.
April 10, 2009 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't surprising. Once Obama sided with telecom immunity, it should have been obvious
what his notions were. They do not lean to the civil liberties side of the fence. It's tragic.
It's even more tragic that Obamites come out of the woodwork defending the continuation of Cheney's unitary executive gameplans by suggesting it's "different" because a good man is justifying the dirty tricks now. Sad stuff.
April 10, 2009 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama is a pragmatist not an idealogue. The government needs a big change in competence first and then ideology can follow.
Bush abused state secrets, but they may prove to be necessary for the executive branch - it is difficult to run any organization where zero sum choices must be made if everyone from the top down knows everything.
I am hoping that in time we do away with state secrets, but it is pretty naive to think that just because we had a change in president, the world has become a safer place. It is not paranoid to think that there are people/countries out to get US.
April 10, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course there are people out to get us. But, I honestly cannot see the security risk here. We are talking about allowing judges holding our government officials accountable to the constitution.
April 10, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
There must be something that the Obama team now knows now that he is President that he didn't know when he was just a candidate.
I wonder what Obama is REALLY learning in those daily briefs...
April 10, 2009 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree 1000% with all of the above posters!!
As has been noted elsewhere "it's deja vu all over again".
I guess I would not be as pissed as I am if I had not donated hundreds of HARD EARNED dollars to his campaign expecting "change we can believe in" and "yes we can".
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on ME!!
April 10, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama needs to clearly draw some lines on this issue, to retain a measure of intellectual moral fibre on this issue (it might not be a big political issue with traction, but it's a legit even if minor point).
If the key difference is How the notion was used by Bush, Obama needs to set out some standards to define that "How" in a way which justifies his Administration's current and possible future uses.
Or, Obama can concede this hypocrisy openly, and say it won't happen again on this issue as well as outlining more clearly a moral stance.
Etc.
April 10, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The campaign quote has to do with how many times the state secret doctrine was applied by Bush II.
That campaign quote has nothing to do with the merits of the doctrine itself.
The lame comments by some activists about the doctrine are lamentable.
Here is a discussion of the doctrine, its merits, and its clear dangers.
April 10, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink