WendyMcElroy.com | |
After his election, I offered this list of nine things that I predicted the Obama administration would not do: 1. Repeal the Patriot Act 2. Repeal the Protect America Act or the FISA Amendments Act (warrantless wiretapping) 3. Repeal the Military Commissions Act 4. Repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force 5. Remove all US troops from Iraq (not just a few) 6. Remove any significant number of US troops from Afghanistan 7. Repeal the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 8. Rein in, in any way, the War on Drugs 9. Reduce federal spending in the slightest On those nine, I have a perfect record. I was wrong about one thing, though. The next day I predicted that Obama would close the prison-and-torture camp at Guantanamo Bay. He hasn't done that, either. P.S. To this we should add Glenn Greenwald's convenient summary of reasons that someone might be dissatisfied with the Obama administration: ...that they've done so little about crisis-level unemployment, foreclosures and widespread economic misery. Or because of the White House's apparently endless devotion to Wall Street. Or because the President has escalated a miserable, pointless and unwinnable war that is entering its ninth year. Or because he has claimed the power to imprison people for life with no charges and to assassinate American citizens without due process, intensified the secrecy weapons and immunity instruments abused by his predecessor, and found all new ways of denying habeas corpus. Or because he granted full-scale legal immunity to those who committed serious crimes in the last administration. Or because he's failed to fulfill -- or affirmatively broken -- promises ranging from transparency to gay rights. And that's not to mention the recent administration claim that (in Greenwald's summation) "not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are 'state secrets,' and thus no court may adjudicate their legality." | |
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