Spencer raises a good question: If Obama's national security policies are so much like the Bush administration's, why are Cheney, Krauthammer and the other conservatives-in-favor-of-the-security-state so furious at the new administration? Jack Goldmsith, making the case -- a depressingly convincing one -- that Obama's policies are merely a more elegant presentation of the same Bush ideas, suggests that Cheney just doesn't understand. I don't really buy that. Cheney is a lot of things, but I don't think he's obtuse. Maybe Cheney's just mad because he thinks Obama will get accolades for policies that are really his. More than that, I do think that Obama has significantly changed the government's approach to these issues, by dint of those policies he has changed substantively and by not pretending in public that these are easy or simple choices. Goldsmith gets at the new president's central national security challenge here:The Obama policies also reflect the fact that the Bush policies were woven into the fabric of the national security architecture in ways that were hard if not impossible to unravel. The new administration would not face the difficulties of closing GTMO if GTMO had not been used as a detention facility in the first place.Indeed. Once the vase gets broken, it's hard to glue the pieces back together in a pleasing fashion. That's not to excuse the choices that Obama has made that don't square with the commitments to civil liberties he made during the campaign, but as Spencer says, there is still a lot more unwinding left to do. The end of torture, the limiting of rendition and the closing of Guantanamo are all still positive steps, and I'd predict that between the administration's internal review process and pressure from congress, the policy surrounding the State Secrets privilege will be improved as well. That still leaves questions about habeas issues and detainees, both those leaving Guantanamo and those in Bagram, that must be addressed for Obama to set himself apart from his predecessor.
-- Tim Fernholz
