...however much Obama may differ from Bush on particulars, he appears intent on sustaining the essentials on which the Bush policies were grounded. Put simply, Obama's pragmatism poses no threat to the reigning national security consensus. Consistent with the tradition of American liberalism, he appears intent on salvaging that consensus.I wish I was more prepared to tackle this critique. One problem with blogging is you end up talking about everything you're reading. But interest isn't the same as deep knowledge, and when it comes out to national security, I admit to my status as a tadpole.For decades now, that consensus has centered on what we might call the Sacred Trinity of global power projection, global military presence, and global activism - the concrete expression of what politicians commonly refer to as "American global leadership." The United States configures its armed forces not for defense but for overseas "contingencies." To facilitate the deployment of these forces it maintains a vast network of foreign bases, complemented by various access and overflight agreements. Capabilities and bases mesh with and foster a penchant for meddling in the affairs of others, sometimes revealed to the public, but often concealed.
Bush did not invent the Sacred Trinity. He merely inherited it and then abused it, thereby reviving the conviction entertained by critics of American globalism, progressives and conservatives alike, that the principles underlying this trinity are pernicious and should be scrapped. Most of these progressives and at least some conservatives voted for Obama with expectations that, if elected, he would do just that. Based on what he has said and done over the past three months, however, the president appears intent instead on shielding the Sacred Trinity from serious scrutiny.
Nevertheless, indulge me a moment, as I doggie-paddle with the sharks.
Andrew (Sullivan, not Bacevich) posed an interesting question to me yesterday. He asked me if there was anything about Obama that scared me. I answered that the thing that scared me most, was the possibility that Paul Krugman was right.
I mean that in the specific sense (about the economy) and in the broader philosophical sense. I think it's fair to say that Obama is, temperamentally, conservative. I mean conservative in opposition to "radical," not progressive or liberal. I think that approach undergirds everything from his stance on the economic crisis to his unwillingness to push too hard on torture. George Packer summed it all up pretty well:
What underlies so many of Obama's decisions is an attachment to the institutions that hold up American society, a desire to make them function better rather than remake them altogether.I differ with Andrew (Bacevich, this time) in that I'm not really surprised by any of this. I didn't think Obama's campaign was especially radical, and I thought his anti-war bonafides were more born of caution and skepticism than out of a deep critique of American military power. That is, in large measure, why I voted for Obama. After eight years of dealing, not simply with an impulsive, anti-intellectual, hot-headed, president, but a rigidly ideological president, I thought the answer was someone who was more pragmatic--even when their politics (as on torture) didn't match up with my own.
But what if pragmatism isn't enough? The danger of a conservative approach, of too much respect for institutions, is that it's liable to deeply underestimate that rot eating away at the girders. It tends to downplay the evil at home, preferring to believe that was is old is, essentially, always good. I think the challenge Bacevich (on foreign policy) and Krugman (on the economy) are posing is this: Pragmatism isn't going to cut it. Only a deep and fundamental overhaul will do.
Is the radical critique, in these two specific cases, of Obama correct? I wish I had the knowledge to answer that. But one reason why this particular point keeps nagging at me is intuitive--it scares me in the credible way that conspiracy theories don't.
Another reason is my own personal history as an African-American, and thus, a member of a group that's historically paid the price for the desire to preserve American institutions. It's fascinating to be reading about Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction America, just as all of this is happening. What's clear is how much the broader country, arguably willfully, underestimated the rot of white supremacy.
The underestimation was founded on the interest of preserving the ultimate institution in American life--the country itself. In 1876, Mississippi essentially staged an armed coup, damning the state to a century of racial hell, and we did nothing. Some of our best minds were taken by lynch mobs, and we looked the other way. A large part of it was racism, but another part was the threat of another Civil War.
It is arguably unfair to isolate race in this matter. The country came of age just as long-held ideas about the nature of humanity were crumbling. There were gender struggles, class struggles, ethnic struggles, all happening at the same time. Still, it took children dying in churches to get us to perk up and take note. One could argue that, even then, we did not take the radical action needed to heal the ancient wound.
What are we underestimating this time? What are we missing by not pushing ourselves toward a fundamental critique of the country? In one respect, it's unfair to put this on Obama. I think the polling shows that he is what America want him to be. In another respect, it's totally fair. Leaders have to risk something. They can't just reflect the electorate. They have to push the electorate.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I think it may be time for you to post the "Everyone chill out. I got this" poster.
The one thing I keep coming back to is that Obama and his team have a longer term vision than I do. You cannot just have deep and systemic change over night. You have to build to it slowly, and you have to make the case in many small ways.
If he were out being as radical as I want him to be, he would have lost 80% of the people by now. By demonstrating the deliberate pace, he brings much more of the nation along with him. And so the change he brings becomes more effective and more durable.
So I appreciate it, even as at times it drives me batty.
I don't think anyone here is particularly paniced. But we can't ask people, even his supporters, to just put their minds on cruise-control.
I think the question is to what extent can you successfully fight a holding action in over areas while we get universal health care. I'd say the economy is the hardest place to do that holding action as fixing it needs to be a high priority and may take radical measures. Getting out of Iraq and managing Afghanistan will also take care, but I think public opinion tends to back Obama on those.
I think a holding action won't cut it to keep torture from reoccurring, but I think real exposes and limits on executive power tend to have to come from Congressional leadership.
On the whole, I'm a more sympathetic to the Bacevich argument than I was before much of the opinion making elite came out against torture accountability. If we can't handle the easy calls until we've paid a high price, I see no reason to believe that we can handle the tough ones.
That said, while I don't think Obama necessarily has a longer term vision than I do, I do think he's a far better political strategist and tactician. That reassures me greatly.
I know what you're saying and I basically believe what you outlined is what he's doing. I guess this is part of the problem with having a smart president who hasn't been in Washington that long; you don't really know what he's doing.
I agree that of course it's critical to keep political pressure on him to live up to his campaign promises. However, one of those promises was to be "president of everyone"--a exact phrase he used that implies that there will be compromise.
Now I've always been a liberal, and as long as gay rights and abortion remain Democratic issues, I'll probably always be a Democrat, but I'd like to think that I've at least always listened to the other side. However, now, I'm afraid I can't because they just aren't taking this seriously. So yeah, I'm nervous about how much Obama could compromise to people that care about nothing more than taking his power.
I think Obama is smarter than this though. My real fear is that he'll listen to Larry Summers too much, and fall victim to the pro-business-centrist Democrat mold which Bill Clinton fell into. The reason I didn't support Clinton was that I was afraid she'd spend all her time fighting with Republicans and getting very little done. I guess my biggest fear is that 8 years will go by really fast, too fast for Obama to fully realize all of the things he's setting up.
. My real fear is that he'll listen to Larry Summers too much, and fall victim to the pro-business-centrist Democrat mold which Bill Clinton fell into.
Yeah, that whole "peace and prosperity" thing was horrible.
This is patently wrong. Wrongheaded, even. There couldn't possibly be more distance between Obama and Bush, in temperment and policy... As far as the East is from the West, that's the difference.
Or, put another way, as far as earnest is from mendacious.
The essentials of the Bush policies were subterfuge and ledgerdemain coupled with huge brass balls solely for the purpose of usurping the public motive for private gain. And the 'national security consensus' (such as it is) was likewise usurped and abused by the previous administration. Yes, Andrew, it was that bad.
At worst, Obama can be accused of naivete towards his predecessors motives and deeds. But that naivete cannot, in any way, be confused with alignment. That superficial resemblance remains is only an indicator of just how effective the Bush administration was at abusing language and usurping motives.
I will give you that there are differences in temperment, but in many cases, the policies are not extremely dissimilar. In foreign policy, it appears we are not going to renegociate NAFTA, Hillary said China's pesky human rights issues won't interfere with trade, and they are warming to the Colombian free trade pact. Obama's policies on NATO wrt Georgia and EU expansion wrt Turkey are in line with Bush's. I have read from lefties that his Pakistan and Afghan policies are even to the right of Bush's(and very much in line with McCain's, more troops, more drones, more bombing of Pakistan).
Even more importantly, Obama doesn't appear to want to remove the reach of our military. Maybe he will pull our troops out of Korea and Germany, and reduce military spending, but that is speculative at best and contradicts his deeds so far.
Now Obama is more willing to sit down with Chavez, Iran, and possible the Castro brothers, so that is a change, but I don't think we will be selling fight jets to Venezuela any time soon.
I don't think any book has frustrated me as much as Bacevich's. I'm constantly typing furious notes (never to be read by anyone) into my Kindle copy, and (metaphorically) tossing it aside for weeks and months on end.
Bacevich is a really smart guy, with something important to say. He just refuses to engage with the word as it exists. He never explain how we'd transition from global empire to his smaller, humbler America.
Intellectually, he's so different from Barack Obama that his critiques don't even make sense. It's like a cellist criticizing a DJ. Yeah, he's probably got some insight, but he can't express it.
You can type notes into a Kindle? OMG. That's the feature I need most, (can't move on until I've sorted my own thoughts on an important point, can't read my own writing ten minutes later)
From the beginning, two areas have seemed quite obvious to me. First, Obama's treasury people have been part of the problem in the past and many of the most prescient economists about our having gotten into the mess we are in have been skeptical about their willingness to do enough to ameliorate the current crisis. The amount of debt we are accruing under their policies, debt someone sooner or later will have to pay for, means that all of us as American citizens need to pay attention, get schooled, and make our voices heard.
The second issue is Obama's policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, and those in concert with Obama inre his Afghanistan policy speak of a decade at minimum long commitment beyond the seven years we have already been there. Whether we have the wherewithal to continue what appears to be an endless slog, and more importantly whether it is in our best interest to continue thus, rather than streamlining our antiterror operations and work to get in concert with other nations and make it something more focused is a critical consideration and, perhaps, a moral one as well.
If Obama continues to tread water in these areas, there is a very real possibility that however much the rest of his program appears to be appealing--the big two being health care and green economy r&d--the American populace saddled with a weak economy and endless war will begin to wane in its support, and his best plans fall by the wayside in the inertia that will replace his current popularity.
Given that Pakistan is a nuclear power in serious danger of falling to the same Muslim extremists that planned 9/11, I dont think we have any choice re: our commitment to Afghanistan. I really dont.
I take a somewhat different view towards Obama's "conservatism." I believe this attitude comes as much from his community organizaing background as it does some deep-seated loyalty to institutions. In community organizing you never get too far ahead of your constituents, since it is their energy that will initiate and sustain momentum on various issues. Indeed, it is their pursuit of their collective interests that the organizing is meant to channel in the first place. Bacevich is reasonable in his worries, but, like Krugman, he is ignoring questions of political logistics. Obama's reform of the Sacred Trinity will have to come alongside a growing national opinion that imperial America doesn't serve its interests. I think Obama felt his election was a clear statement against torture and pre-emptive war and for diplomacy. But this view was always couched as returning America to its prime standing, not receding into post-imperial neighborliness. As Al Giordano might say, Obama needs to be organized by his supporters on this issue,
And that brings up the question of who actually belongs to the community organization. Alinskyan community organizing is not designed to organize 300,000,000 people. It's designed to get already-extant communities with objectively-shared interests to move forward democratically and effectively. In fact, to the extent that Alinskyan organizing is designed to get oppressed communities to win power from their oppressors, it's not even clear to me what an organization of the entire US (still the most powerful nation in the world) would actually aim to do. Our struggle is primarily, in fact, within the community, not between the community and some other entity.
I agree that Obama's inclinations seem to be influenced by community organizing, but the US isn't the Back of the Yards organization or a Community Services Organization in the California Central Valley, and the President isn't an organizer.
I agree completely-- you can't adopt the community organizing model to the Presidency. I'm speaking of a general political principle that seeps into Obama's approach with respect to what seems like "conservatism." But even in talking about "the country," no politician is ever really talking about the 300 million. Particular interests are always jostling for chief representation, and American foreign policy is part of a battle within America between interests that claim allies all over the world (on both sides). The Realpolitik comes in having unity talk actually represent one's own faction better than one's opponents.
This is a great piece, Ta-Nehisi. The comparison to Reconstruction is one I hadn't thought of (though my knowledge of Reconstruction is really threadbare, I have to admit). I definitely share your sense that Obama's position on radicalism/conservatism should be no surprise to us. Frankly, I think he's always told a slightly over-flattering story of American history and progress, one that doesn't give enough weight to the crucial roles that internal conflict and destabilization have played in moving us forward.
One minor quibble though, with this:
I'd just like to clarify one point: Obama's pragmatism makes him less rigid than Bush, but not less ideological. I think that Bacevich's point it that Obama is just as ideologically committed to established systems of (American) power as any of his predecessors, including Bush. He's just not nearly as bull-headed or stupid about expressing that commitment in governing or policy-making.
If you take the premise (as I do) that the undermining premise of the Bush administration tended towards "If we don't learn how to goose-step, the terrorists win."... or, put another way, "only fascism can defeat terrorism... then the institutions that make up American society have, themselves, been victims of subterfuge...
If that's the case... and I'd like to, at least, hear an argument that it's not... then Obama is the right person at the right time.
I think two of our more important institutions, the Justice Department and the FBI, were pretty clearly in resistance to the Bush administration. The FBI refused to participate in torture and the Justice Department, rather messily, couldn't let the politicization go unheeded. For various reasons, some of which I get, and others I reject, the national security infrastructure is silent on these issues. The point, however, is that Bush policies were mendacious at their core and had the effect of undermining said institutions. That Obama takes these institutions at face value (perhaps naively, perhaps not..) isn't the same thing as agreement with Bushs mendacity. That mendacity relied on people thinking that Bush meant what he said... when in fact, he often meant the exact opposite.
The main institutions of power in the US are concentrated wealth (mainly corporate wealth) and the apparatus of the national security state. Bush's policies were designed to concentrate more and more power in the hands of both institutions.
There always have been and always will be disputes between Liberals and Conservatives over how much power to hand over to those institutions. But, aside from the occasional Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, there is no debate over whether those institutions should exist in the first place. The question is, does that debate need to take place in order for us to address the massive problems we face as a society and a world? I think it does, and I think Obama thinks it doesn't.
One thing that concerns me about Obama is his essentially people-pleasing nature. You can call this a lot of things - "consensus seeking", etc., but my concern is that I see a lot of times where Obama leaves the room with everyone liking him--but I'm not sure I see a lot of times where he leaves the room having moved people to get on board with him (i'm talking about, having moved with him on a specific issue - not support for him as a candidate, which is in many ways more akin to the former). Without the latter, it's hard to get a lot of change - much less "radical" change.
I think his practicality is somewhat related to this, but probably more importantly acts as an important mitigant to it - at least he has an essential sense to not get too far off the rails in who he's dealing with. But that means he's not going to be moving us far from the center.
So a blurb like this below, from TPM muckracker, comes with all the caveats - anonymous sourcing, not sure the full context, etc. But TPM thought it worth printing, and to me it crystallized a concern I often have with Obama. To wit, why the f are you making your decisions in the context of negotiating with a buffoon like Boehner? Make your decision, but make sure it's yours - not just a decision to make peace, but the right decision.
"And the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reports that Obama backed away from the position [in favor of a bipartisan torture commission] during a "lengthy exchange" earlier yesterday with House Minority Leader John Boehner."
It's been said about FDR that he was an effective dissembler: everybody who left a meeting with him felt, to a surety, that he was on board with them and their agenda, only to find, at the more crucial time, that FDR had steered his own path. On the other hand, Bill Clinton, it is also said, made much of his decisions based upon the last person to whom he spoke... He, unlike FDR, appeared to be beholden to those feelings of fellowship engendered. So, both of them were, often, well spoken of, but the similarities were superficial. So the test, for Obama, isn't whether or not a critical mass of people like him and say so publicly, but whether or not that fellowship seems to bind him to a particular course. I think, at this point, that he doesn't seem to be so beholden. I think this is a developing, evolving thing...
As neither of the “A”s in AA, I want to watch my step here, but I think you overshot the mark with “a member of a group that's historically paid the price for the desire to preserve American institutions.”
There’s no doubt that African-Americans have paid a disproportionately high price (and received measure of recompense that is disproportionately small) for preserving America institutions, but they are not the only group to have paid such a price.
Andrew Bacevich, for example, comes from a family with a history of military service, and his son, an army officer, paid the ultimate price for preserving American institutions when he was killed in Iraq. Bacevich is actually a powerful example what seems to be the increasingly rare belief that that who benefit most from what the country provides have the greatest obligation to fight for its preservation.
(In mentioning the death of Andrew Bacevich’s son, I should make it clear here that I did not find anything disrespectful or insensitive towards anyone in your original post.)
Of course, young Bacevich’s death has these echoes in the lynchings and church bombings that you mention: he paid a terrible price for something of debatable value.
As to whether Obama is too pragmatic to bring about worthwhile change in the way America works, I think he still deserves the benefit of the doubt. Given the war, the economy, the environment (to say nothing of potential pandemics), it seems to me that he serves America’s interests best by first trying to reestablish a sense of confidence in the national venture. My hope is that, if he can achieve this, he can then draw on that restored confidence to encourage Americans to explore some new possibilities and arrangements.
Of course, each week I also hope I’ll win the lottery, and that hasn’t worked out for me.
I think you should consider that comment in the context in which it was raised--in discussing who and what gets sacrificed to maintain a national consensus, not the millions who've served in the armed forces. The comment refers to people being oppressed in order to maintain a national consensus. Moreover, I don't think a rational person would argue that blacks are the "only" people in the grand sweep of American history to experience this. To the extent that isn't clear, I could have been more precise.
In my own writing I’m a big reviser, and trying to make a point in timely manner at blog speed works against my natural style. Inevitably, I see something go up, and immediately see all the points I didn’t make or didn’t make well.
In terms of a group of people being sacrificed to make support a national consensus, I would say there are two such groups in America – African-Americans and American Indians. There are lots of other people the country hasn’t treated well, but they have not been the subject of so much policy.
I didn’t think your were trying to ignore or devalue the contributions of other groups in the area of military service, and understood that your post wasn’t about military service.
However, it did feature Andrew Bacevich, and I’d listened to a couple of his lectures within the last month, and knew his son had been killed in the war. Something about that and your post struck a chord with me.
Where I saw parallels to the death of Bacevich’s son in Iraq and to the sacrifices so often made of and made by African-American’s is that they sacrifices from/of people who believed in the system.
Bacevich believed in an ideal of service to his country, and, to put the best face on it, he died for that ideal. To put the worst face on it, he died because his Government had sold people a bill of goods about Iraq. Typically that particular bill of goods hasn’t been sold too often to middle class whites, but, in one form or another, it has been on offer to African-Americans since at least 40 Acres and a Mule.
A final comment to supplement my previous commentary. I have no doubt that Obama is attitudinally an extraordinary politician, and I see his mix of conservatism and progressivism tapping into the very real attitudes that most Americans have. It's not his nature or spirit that I find troubling but specific policies in which a great deal of his pragmatism, intelligence, and interesting mix of a desire to conserve American values and institutions along with progressively promoting them in ways to serve the widest possible swath of our populace seem to be scrapped for the counsel of those whose policy decisions in the past have not displayed such a winning combination, but rather, after transitory success, have led to one catastrophic result after another. It's the policies, stupid.
This whole discussion reminds of what Stephen Skowronek foresaw (worried about?) happening to the policies created by the White House. Thanks to the intractability of certain institutions created by previous administrations (think of how trying to privatize social security killed W's "political capital"), he predicted presidents would be stuck in what he called "the politics of perpetual pre-emption."
Basically, this theory implies that the institutions mold the dynamics of governing now, not the politicians. They can make changes around the outsides (SCHIP, etc.) and perhaps create new institutions (cap and trade? healthcare?) but not re-align or reconstruct the old ones, a la FDR. They are too embedded in how government functions and what the public perceives government's role to be. Even Reagan ran up against this problem - he trimmed some fat here and there, but really changed the political zeitgeist more than anything. This matches up with Bacevich's belief that Obama won't touch the trinity.
Now, is Skowronek right? We won't ever really know - there could be a new reconstructor who comes along and offers the radical change people hoped for from Obama, or a second term could be vastly different than a first term. But right now it doesn't look like he's going to try to reconstruct the massive institutions that shape our government, he's just going to redecorate a bit.
I've never read Skowronek, but FWIW here's my view of why FDR was able to re-align and reconstruct old institutions. Institutions of American power believed in the 1930s that they faced an existential threat. Not merely economic collapse -- Capital had survived plenty of depressions before the late 1920s -- but social and political movements in reaction to that collapse that threatened radical changes to the structure of American society. Workers were successfully staging general strikes; unemployed workers (working through a socialist-led unemployed workers' union) occupied the New Jersey State Senate for the better part of a week and expelled the Senators from their own hall; Huey Long had built enormous support for "Share Our Wealth", and Upton Sinclair won the Democratic Nomination for Governor of California on the EPIC (End Poverty in California) program, part of which involved state confiscation of unused industrial capacity and handing plants over to workers to operate.
The New Deal was tolerable to naturally-inertial institutions of power to the extent that the alternative to the New Deal was being wiped out. I think we'll get fundamental change to institutions of power (if we do at all) as a result of threatening their existence from without, not by reforming them from within. But, to close my little rant and return to the topic of Ta-Nehisi's post, I don't think Obama agrees with my view.
I agree completely - that said, it would probably take a long, extended depression to create the outside pressure for radical change. It is near impossible to create sufficient pressure from within, so I think that Obama is probably right to take the pragmatic path on this - if he turned toward reconstruction even Democrats in Congress (those outside of the progressive caucus at least, and some of those within) would probably turn against him. Obama is really good at knowing what is possible and not pushing too hard. Right now, there just isn't enough external pressure to radically alter institutions.
I have found myself trusting Obama but you have laid out what for me is also a concern. The Presidents that are seen as the most successful (Lincoln, FDR) have been those who dared to uproot some of the basic presumptions of American life whether it be institutions, policy or worldview. I fear that not just as a political positioning but as a matter of temperment that Obama does not understand nor activate the deeper possibilities of an outsider/insider position. He may not be taking Rahm Emmanuel's advice to heart, "Never waste a crisis."
Seems like a good time to quote the Tao:
If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.
The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.
Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.
This is such a Christian sentiment, expressed here.
Its why I keep wondering if those who speculate Jesus spent some of his years between 12 and 33 in the Far East...were they right?
Another relevant quote from the Tao:
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
If you don't trust the people,
you make them untrustworthy.
The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!"
This is the crux of the entire debate: you're mistaking a desire for an outcome with effective action towards that outcome. In this manner, George Bush was able to play you...
Now, George Bush might say to you, "Garwsh, I sure hope you win the lottery too... all the while installing cronies and crooks at the lottery in a rather naked effort to reward friends and without regard to whether you, or indeed anybody, wins the lottery. The net effect is that the probability that you win the lottery is much much lowered.
Now, along comes Obama who say "Gollee, I too sure hope you win the lottery, too... and then goes about making the lottery more fair, more equitable and more accessible. The net effectis that the probability that you win the pot is increased.
Bush and Obama have said the exact same thing and made the same types of changes, at least superficially the same types, when along comes Andrew Bacevich saying "Gee... I don't see any difference."
Is Obama facing anything even close to the kind of crises that Lincoln and FDR had to face? I don't think so. If your whole society is going to blow apart no matter what you do, you can make much more radical moves. That doesn't seem to be happening now.
For me, the closest analogy to present circumstances is the 1970s. What I don't know is whether Obama is more like Carter or Reagan.
Obama's doing medium scale change.
He's defending capitalism by (a) putting together global will for regulations that fit emerging market conditions and (b) deciding quietly and decisively which CEOs need their throats slit and which corporations need to be put down. A noisy process would be no help, because most major businesses are sound and most leaderships teams need to stay in place and most investors need to stay put rather than sell.
In global affairs, it's time to notice the non-barking dog. Biden said it in the fall: other countries will challenge Obama early. It made perfect sense, because new presidents usually get tested. And yet it didn't happen. The all-stars he dispatched convinced just about everyone it was smarter not to try. The exceptions are the Korean head of state, the Pakistani Taliban, and Somali pirates.
On health care, they're moving with speed, setting the Republicans up to look like fools again.
On torture, I think Gramsci has it right above. Obama doesn't see the mobilized will nationally yet. He's letting the discussion work through. He'll step out on the limb when it's strong enough to bear his weight--and it's up to us to grow the tree.
Yeah, it's a good question whether he's doing small trimming when radical surgery is needed--but I think the answer is he's going as big as it takes on each big issue.