Much of the buzz about Jodi Kantor’s new book, The Obamas, has centered on the gossipy angles of First Lady Michelle Obama’s adjustment to the White House and open conflict with top Obama advisers. But there are also less inside-baseball anecdotes of interest.
One such example in the book–which is, by the way, so relentlessly positive toward President Obama that it reads like a series of letters the president wrote to himself to buck up his spirits–comes when the president realizes his campaign promises on Guantanamo and detainee policy were foolhardy now that he has all the information. One day, the president brought in a group of law professors and civil liberties activists to meet with him, in the hope they would criticize him there in private and not do so publicly:
But Obama didn’t pull his punches. “When I was a senator running for office, I talked very firmly about what I thought was right based on the information I had,” Vince Warren, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, recalled the president saying. “Now I’m the president of all the people, and the decisions I make have to be from that perspective based on the information I now have.” His face emotionless, he told his guests that he was considering an indefinite detention policy, allowing authorities to hold certain suspects without charges. It was an “Oh my God moment,” one guest said later.
Good for the president to say that instead of blaming others, at least. But the worst moment of the meeting took place at its conclusion, when ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero repeated his plea for Obama to prosecute Bush officials. Romero said: “Hunt one head and hunt it famously and bring it down to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes again.”
Obama, to his great credit, told Romero he was alone on that ledge and dismissed the meeting.
huh–this is the first positive excerpt from the book I've heard. I like to think our conservative news sources are "fair and balanced"–perhaps some of them (not you, commentary!) suffer from the same myopia as our friends at MSNBC, especially if the book's as pro-Barack as Seth describes it. n nI like hearing smack about Michelle Obama as much as the next person, but if Obama has moments of lucidity and right thinking, we should hear about those too.
So in other words the head of the ACLU suggested to the president that he should use all of government's power against one individual chosen more or less randomly for persecution. Good to know.
Seth Mandel lowers the bar: Obama gets "great credit" for not abusing his executive power? n nWhat would get Obama some credit would be to publicly acknowledge he was wrong about GITMO. That he has not done however.
Why in the holy crap is the President of the United States taking a meeting with someone who would advocate such unmitigated hate? Does not anyone screen him from such crazies? I know these are rhetorical questions, but is this guy really serious? I can not imagine JFK, LBJ, or even Carter meeting with such a obvious idiot. r nr nHe is essentially asking this idiot for policy input on the most serious legal issue facing the health and well being of the citizens of the USA, and his response is for a political Witch Hunt. r nr nIdiots.