Where is it written that upon election presidential candidates must drink the Kool-Aid of the Nixon administration? Apparently this is in writing somewhere and in accord the secret service rolls one of those old civil defense water barrels into the oval office and pries off the top for a sampling of the Chateau du Tricky-Dick. One wonders if Mr. Obama like the boquet. Was there a hint of cherries? Were there some tanins that hinted of Pinochet’s Chile? Did Mr. Obama hold his nose?
We will never know.
What we do know is that the president has flip-flopped on his original decision to release over 2,000 photographs depicting the maltreatment and/or torture of foreign detainees by U.S. forces. Yesterday afternoon Mr. Obama announced that he has changed his mind. He has determined that the release of these photos will have the potential to harm our troops in the field.
One imagines that Obama has performed a quick political triangulation. He will let the judiciary compel the release of the photos. He knows that they will be released eventually. He also knows that in the climate of “Cheneyiazation” when the reactionary bubble talk is that the Democrats are making the nation weaker he is much better off if he adopts the position that he is withholding the photos for the sake of the nation’s security.
The Kool-Aid must be exquisite.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 