Rebranding The War On Terror

by Chris Bodenner

Jack Goldsmith, the former OLC chief, makes the case that Obama has just repackaged, and thereby strengthened, the Bush/Cheney approach to terrorism. Greenwald homes in:

None of Goldsmith's analysis is grounded in the proposition that Obama hasn't yet acted to change Bush policies, thus rendering a nonsequitur the response that "Obama needs more time; it's only been 4 months." Goldsmith is describing affirmative steps Obama has already announced to adopt the core Bush "terrorism" policies.

Andrew has said Obama deserves the benefit of the doubt until at least the end of the summer campaign in Af-Pak. Adam Serwer counters:

Either there's due process or there isn't. ...  Because the instinct of the "respectable intellectual center" is to find whatever position seems to lie between two "extremes" and stick to it, Obama's almost wholesale embrace of Bush counterterrorism policies can be sold as a "compromise." But if you believed the last administration was "extreme" in its assertion of executive power, than this one is too.