Obama's First Days: So Far, So Good
Unfortunately, I was distracted on Wednesday and Thursday by a big metal hoopajube. But I do think that the first two full days of President Obama’s administration deserve to be noted and, at least to some extent, praised.
Specifically:
Closing Guantanamo: The detainee facility was established for one purpose and one purpose only: to establish a zone where the United States Government wielded total control but where the Constitution did not apply. Once the Supreme Court ruled that monstrous goal to be impermissible, there was simply no further reason to keep Gitmo open. The remaining detainees can easily be transferred to military prisons.
Suspending Detainee Litigation: Obama is hardly “cutting them all loose.” He has merely ordered the Justice Department (and asked the courts) to pause all trials for 120 days while the new administration re-evaluates individual cases and crafts new policy. (Note: This also includes the one “non-Gitmo detainee,” Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, who is being held at a naval station in South Carolina.)
Banning Torture: The fastest path to reclaiming the moral high ground (not to mention the English language — “enhanced interrogation techniques”?).
Suspension of Draft Legislation: Any unfinished work at the end of an ongoing administration is almost certainly either unnecessary, partisan or both. This is not to say that any new regulations by the Obama administration will necessarily be good ideas, especially on the economic front. But a clean and unambiguous break from Bush administration is the presumptively correct action.
Gay Rights: Obama has been bumper-billiarding from one misstep to another since the Prop 8 debacle. The swift, almost premature, rewriting of the White House website with an expansive list of promises is the first reconciling bone to be tossed to gays. But let’s recall that most of the “gay agenda” is statutory and requires Obama to lean a bit on Pelosi and Reid. How willing will he be to do that, in the face of so much other intra-party haggling that must occur? Stay tuned…
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Regarding the announcement that President Obama is lifting the “Mexico City rule,” which bans federal funding of foreign health care facilities that provide abortion services or counseling: I would first note that any taxpayer funding of any foreign healthcare facilities is, like all foreign aid, not a legitimate function of government. Beyond that, I would just like to see this ping-pong approach to the issue stopped one way or the other: Reagan imposed it, Clinton lifted it, Bush re-imposed it, Obama re-lifted it. Enough already.
Filed under: Constitutional Issues, Gay Rights and Issues, Libertarianism, Politics
I'm also pleased with Obama's first few days, in addition to the signals he sent during the transition. However, I think everyone should be prepared to see him fall short of a lot of the positions he took during the campaign. That's just the political reality of Washington.
On Guantanamo–he's not going to be able to literally "close" it anytime soon. There are too many obstacles. Where are all the detainees going? Some won't be taken by any country, and some are too dangerous to just release. Many of those already released have returned to the fight, and so will some of those now at Gitmo.
Gays in the military–Clinton sincerely intended to eliminate all restrictions on gays serving openly in the armed forces. But, he quickly ran headfirst into political reality, not just from the military but, more importantly, in Congress. So, we got "don't ask, don't tell." Being a retired military officer, I understand the military's view better than most. Frankly, I don't think most military people are that concerned about it. I know I'm not. But Congress is another matter, and Obama may have some problems there.
I think Obama's heart is in the right place on most of these issues. But he has to live in the real world, too.