It is hard for me, as a political junkie, to admit it, but I really do like the new President. I believe that I have lost whatever semblance of objectivity I might normally have when it comes to Mr. Obama. Part of it is that I invested, both financially and emotionally, in his candidacy in a way that I hadn't in any other election. I was completely taken in by his manner, his ability to articulate his positions, and what he professed to believe in. It wasn't that I agreed with him on everything, but I found that the areas where we disagreed, I could at least understand his argument and believed that his position to be a principled one. After eight years of the condescending bullshit 43 and his team shoveled out, Obama was the perfect antidote.
The other part, which Denise and I were talking about last night, is that there is a conspicuous lack of "Corporate" to the tone Obama has set in his first 100 days. He was criticized less than 10 days into office by the minions of the Occupant for his very informality, which frankly made Obama that much more appealing. He admitted mistakes, on the teevee no less. All these things, quite apart from the policy direction and actions he has taken, made this president different. He is, in short, my president in a way that is completely different from any other in my lifetime.
I was listening to Obama's news conference on the radio on the way home last night and heard him say something really familiar when he was responding to a question about the legality of waterboarding. He mentioned having "read recently" about how, during "The Blitz", Churchill had refused to allow the torture of captured spies. Obama was struck by how a leader, faced with the terror that accompanied the bombing of England by the Luftwaffe for 7 months (including a stretch of 57 consecutive nights) managed.
In listening to Obama retell the story, I could tell instantly that I had also read that article, published on Andrew Sullivan's blog, several days ago and had been struck by Churchill's essential humanity - I won't torture because 1) it is an ineffective and unreliable tool and 2) I will become the barbarism that I'm fighting. Here are his actual comments:
"I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, “We don’t torture,” when the entire British — all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.
And then the reason was that Churchill understood — you start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s — what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.
And — and so I strongly believed that the steps that we’ve taken to prevent these kinds of enhanced interrogation techniques will make us stronger over the long term and make us safer over the long term because it will put us in a — in a position where we can still get information.
In some cases, it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.
At the same time, it takes away a critical recruitment tool that al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians.
And it makes us — it puts us in a much stronger position to work with our allies in the kind of international, coordinated intelligence activity that can shut down these networks."
Anyway, I can't really express how gratifying it was to know that a few days ago, my president and I happened to stumble across the same article and had similar thoughts. I found that amazingly reassuring.
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