President Obama and his liberal base

Dear Friends,

It is a very sad day for America.  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 6 to 5 decision upheld the Bush Administration's and now the Obama Administration's contention that the government can avoid any responsibility for criminal activity, in this case torture, by simply claiming that to defend the case would disclose state secrets.  Candidate Obama was outspoken in his criticism of President Bush's national security stances including President Bush's expanded claims with respect to the state secrets doctrine.  Unfortunately, President Obama is pushing to expand the use of that doctrine perhaps even further than President Bush was pushing it.  The New York Times article on the decision (here) reads in part:

Its counterterrorism programs have in some ways departed from the expectations of change fostered by President Obama’s campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of former President George W. Bush’s approach.
Among other policies, the Obama national security team has also authorized the C.I.A. to try to kill a United States citizen suspected of terrorism ties, blocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas corpus lawsuits challenging the basis for their imprisonment without trial, and continued the C.I.A.’s so-called extraordinary rendition program of prisoner transfers — though the administration has forbidden torture and says it seeks assurances from other countries that detainees will not be mistreated.

The New York Times editorial on the decision read in part,

But the merits of the case were never considered because the Bush administration argued that even discussing the matter in court would violate the state secrets privilege. Barack Obama told voters in 2008 that he opposed the government cult of secrecy, but once he became president, his Justice Department also argued that the case should be dismissed on secrecy grounds.
The Ninth Circuit was sharply divided, voting 6 to 5 to dismiss the case and overturn a decision to let it proceed that was made by a panel of three circuit judges last year. The majority said it reached its decision reluctantly and was not trying to send a signal that secrecy could be used regularly to dismiss lawsuits. But even though it is public knowledge that Jeppesen arranged the torture flights, the majority said any effort by the company to defend itself would pose “an unacceptable risk of disclosure of state secrets.”
That notion was demolished by the five-judge minority that dissented from the ruling, pointing out that the plaintiffs were never even given a chance to make their case in court using nonsecret evidence, including a sworn statement by a former Jeppesen employee about the company’s role in what he called “the torture flights.” The case should have been sent back to the district court to examine which evidence was truly secret; now it will have to be appealed to a Supreme Court that is unlikely to be sympathetic to the plaintiffs.

As President Obama seems to be starting to engage in the mid-term election process with his Labor Day speech in Milwaukee and his follow-up speech in Cleveland, he was also starting to appeal to his liberal base.  He has ignored us and disappointed us, but now that the elections are approaching he needs us so he gives a couple of speeches that contain language that would appeal to liberals.

There is no question that President Obama needs to get the liberal base enthusiastic again.  Here are some self-explanatory paragraphs from a recent article by Peter Grier in The Christian Science Monitor (here):

Remember when Barack Obama would stride onstage at big rallies during the 2008 campaign and shout, “I’m fired up and ready to go!” His supporters loved it. They’d often chant, “Ready to go, ready to go, ready to go,” right back.
The president’s party could use some of that old enthusiasm right now. Because when it comes to the 2010 midterms, Democrats are not fired up, and not ready to go. They are ready to stay home and not vote.
That’s a big reason why the Republicans are increasingly favored to take back the House and have a chance to regain majority status in the Senate. It is GOP voters that now are excited about their party’s electoral prospects.
You can see this enthusiasm gap in the latest polls. A Gallup survey released Sept. 7 found that 50 percent of Republicans are “very enthusiastic” about voting in the coming election. The corresponding figure for Democrats is 25 percent.

I looked again at President Obama's schedule.  For some reason the White House website simply says "No public schedule".  I am sure that the President has a schedule for all those days, but the White House is not disclosing what it is.  How's that for transparency?  And what happened to his promise, "I am going to keep fighting, every single day, every single hour, every single minute to turn this economy around"?

President Obama is not going to get his liberal base out to vote by staying in the White House and continuing the worst of the Bush Administration policies that deny justice to those whom we tortured.  He could really engage the liberal base if he would reverse all those policies of the Bush Administration that he railed against as Candidate Obama but then adopted as President Obama and at the same time traveled the country from coast to coast fighting for an infrastructure stimulus in the hundreds of billions of dollars that would actually do something.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal