Changed

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Massimo Calebresi and Michael Weisskopf's story on Greg Craig's resignation is really really depressing. For all of us who hoped that Obama would lead us out of the War on Terror dark years, the increasingly answer appears to be, sorta. For me, here is the key exchange:

Obama, a onetime constitutional-law professor, told Craig he needed more time and asked for an extension. But when Michael Hayden, Bush's CIA director who had stayed on in Obama's first month, learned that the memos might be released, he went ballistic.
"What are you doing?" Hayden, just retired, demanded in a March 18 call to Craig. If Obama released the memos, Hayden argued, al-Qaeda would be able to train its warriors to resist the techniques described in their contents.
"The President is never going to authorize any of those techniques," Craig replied assuredly, so there was no danger in disclosing the methods to the enemy.
Hayden pressed on: "Lemme get this right. There are no conditions of threat this nation might face that would prompt you to interrupt the sleep cycle of somebody who may have lifesaving information?"
There was a long silence. Craig would not concede the point.

It's amazing that we're still discussing ticking time-bombs. But here's something else: It's increasingly become my conclusion that most of want to live in a free society, as long as it's inexpensive. I don't mean that to be dismissive--our lives are all we have, and some diligence about how, and when, they're risked is natural. Catastrophe inspires a particular fear, and catastrophe at the hands of foreigners, for whatever reason, feels like an existential threat. There is a natural inclination, when you remember how those people died on 9/11, to want to do whatever you can to make sure it never happens again.

But everything costs. I hoped that, as president, Obama would expend some capital making us aware of the long-term costs of sacrificing our values for a kind of short-term security. Conversely, I hoped he'd remind people that long-term interests and deeply-held values, often exact a short-term costs. Perhaps these are the limits of electoral politics. What politician wants to remind Americans that the threat of terrorism--domestic or otherwise--is the cost of a free society?

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2009/11/changed/30655/