5/22: Battle Of The Speeches

Not surprisingly, liberal and conservative bloggers had opposite reactions to ex-VP Dick Cheney's national security speech: the former hated it and the latter loved it. What is perhaps more interesting is that despite Cheney's low approval ratings, conservative bloggers see his emergence as a leading Barack Obama critic as a good thing for the GOP. In fact, they believe that Cheney benefited from the contrast between his speech and Obama's. Melissa Clouthier writes: "Contrasting the wussy Obama with the manly Cheney was a nice refreshing breath of fresh air and a reminder why Republicans win every once in a while." Allahpundit thinks it was "awfully stupid" of Obama to schedule his national security speech on the same day as Cheney's, since it only elevated the importance of the latter. Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, thought that "Cheney was simply outclassed" and that "it wasn't even close". The netroots are confident that Obama benefits whenever the face of the opposition is an unpopular figure like Cheney or Rush Limbaugh.

As for Obama's speech, conservative bloggers (not surprisingly) hated it, but liberal bloggers had a more nuanced reaction. While they were impressed by Obama's eloquence, many of them are complaining that the President's actions on matters of civil liberties aren't consistent with his words. Lefty bloggers were particularly alarmed by Obama's comments about creating a system of "preventive detention" for suspected terrorists who are considered dangerous but who cannot be tried in court. Joan McCarter complains: "You cannot at the same time reiterate 'our values' and 'our timeless ideals' and the 'rule of law' and indefinitely, 'preventively' detain people in prison with no charges or proof of any crime."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Erickson, Hawkins) are urging NRSC Chair John Cornyn to follow the example of FL GOP Chair Jim Greer and back off his endorsement of Gov. Charlie Crist in the FL GOP Senate primary.

OBAMA SPEECH: He Talks A Good Game, But...

Many liberal bloggers are complaining that Obama's rhetoric about upholding America's "values" is contradicted by his actions:

• Salon's Greenwald: "The speech was fairly representative of what Obama typically does: effectively defend some important ideals in a uniquely persuasive way and advocating some policies that promote those ideals (closing Guantanamo, banning torture tactics, limiting the state secrets privilege) while committing to many which plainly violate them (indefinite preventive detention schemes, military commissions, denial of habeas rights to Bagram abductees, concealing torture evidence, blocking judicial review on secrecy grounds). Like all political officials, Obama should be judged based on his actions and decisions, not his words and alleged intentions and motives. Those actions in the civil liberties realm, with some exceptions, have been profoundly at odds with his claimed principles, and this speech hasn't changed that. Only actions will."
• TAPPED's Adam Serwer: "With his soaring and sincere rhetoric, the president has done an incredible job of selling his kinder, gentler War on Terror, and ultimately, the American people will likely have his back, if only because they trust him. In a sense, Barack Obama may be far more dangerous than George W. Bush when it comes to violating our civil liberties; where the American people feared the excesses of Bush, they trust wholly in the sincerity of Barack Obama. At least for now."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "I appreciate the President's eloquence yet find myself bemoaning his actions on this matter now before us."

A few bloggers had more positive reactions to Obama's speech:

• BooMan: "[This] is a very impressive speech that forcefully condemns his predecessors and calls on all of our better angels. The man is a once-in-a-generation politician and we're fortunate that he is making these difficult decisions. He is getting some of this wrong, in my opinion, but his reasoning is thoughtful and sincere. I can't ask for a whole lot more."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "To [Obama's] credit, he got right up and forcefully articulated why his vision -- our vision -- is correct. He met the Cheney arguments head-on, and shied from none of them. [...] Obama's going to disappoint me as President at times. But he sure didn't today. He showed me that he's not scared to fight hard on this most critical of political fronts. It's a very promising sign."
• The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan: "This speech, to my mind, was a conservative one by a conservative president who seeks first and foremost to use existing institutions to address the new challenges of the moment, and then seeks pragmatic compromises, always open to future checks and balances, in those places where such institutions clearly need reform and adjustment. The speech does not shrink from clear positions but it always does so from a place of reason and authority as opposed to politics and power. It is a presidential speech -- from a man who seeks to unite and lead this country forward, rather than someone who sees fear and division as a tool to be exploited."

OBAMA SPEECH II: What Happened To Due Process?

Liberal bloggers were particularly alarmed by Obama's comments about creating a system of "preventive detention" for suspected terrorists who are considered dangerous but who cannot be tried in court:

• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Can anyone explain what exactly preventive detention means other than holding people indefinitely without evidence or charges?"
• digby: "There are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US."
• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "I liked most of Obama's speech. If it weren't for that one little bit about preventive detention, I'd be as happy as a clam. But there it was. [...] The power to detain people without filing criminal charges against them is a dictatorial power. It is inherently arbitrary. What is it that they are supposed to have done? If it is not a crime, why on earth not make it one? If it is a crime, and we have evidence that this person committed it, but that evidence was extracted under torture, then perhaps we need to remind ourselves of the fact that torture is unreliable. If we just don't have enough evidence, that's a problem, but it's also a problem with detaining them in the first place."
• Greenwald: "[E]ven as [Obama] paid repeated homage to 'our values' and 'our timeless ideals,' he demanded the power (albeit with unspecified judicial and Congressional oversight) to keep people in prison with no charges or proof of any crime having been committed, all while emphasizing that this 'war' will continue for at least ten years."
• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "These detainees should be reclassified as prisoners of war, bound by Geneva Conventions as the 'clear, defensible and lawful standards' that we already have in place. But beyond that, there needs to be an accounting for why they 'cannot be prosecuted for past crimes.' That is a part of the accountability that the rule of law demands. You cannot at the same time reiterate 'our values' and 'our timeless ideals' and the 'rule of law' and indefinitely, 'preventively' detain people in prison with no charges or proof of any crime. The legal limbo that these men have existed in for the past eight years has to end."
• Firedoglake's Ian Welsh: "Once we've decided that thought crimes are worthy of preventative punishment, once that is a principle embedded in the law, who else are we going to lock up whom we can't prove has committed a crime, not even that of conspiracy, because we think they may commit one in the future? That's not a power any human being should have over another. But it is the power Obama has demanded, has arrogated to himself, just as George Bush does. If that isn't against American values, then at long last, I don't know what American values are."

TAPPED's Tim Fernholz: "[T]he impression I get from the speech is that if we can't find ways to prosecute these dangerous people -- and 'can't prosecute' means is that we can't legally prove they are actually dangerous -- they'll remain in jail indefinitely with no recourse. It is, as Adam [Serwer] writes, a dangerous precedent. But in all honesty I can't imagine that Obama, or any other president, would make a different choice."

OBAMA SPEECH III: A Win For Cheney?

Not surprisingly, conservative bloggers were not impressed by Obama's speech, and they loved the contrast between Obama's speech and Cheney's:

• Right Wing News' Clouthier: "Contrasting the wussy Obama with the manly Cheney was a nice refreshing breath of fresh air and a reminder why Republicans win every once in a while."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "When watching the dueling speeches today, two things became very clear to me: (1.) Barack Obama sounds more like a candidate for president than like a president. (2.) Dick Cheney is more 'presidential' than the president."
• AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer: "I think that if somebody came to the subject fresh, with no preconceived notions, and watched (as so many of us did) President Barack Obama and Cheney back to back today, dueling across town, that open-minded person would believe that Cheney made a far stronger case. And oddly enough, Cheney's very lack of 'style points' served only to emphasize rather than detract from the simple, straightforward weight of his message. [...] Listen to Obama's speech, and you come away empty, as if you just were given the intellectual equivalent of meringue. Listen to Cheney, and you come away thinking you have just had the intellectual equivalent of a full, stick-to-your-ribs, meat-and-potatoes meal."
• The Weekly Standard's William Kristol: "Obama's is the speech of a young senator who was once a part-time law professor -- platitudinous and preachy, vague and pseudo-thoughtful in an abstract kind of way. [...] Cheney's is the speech of a grownup, of a chief executive, of a statesman. He's sober, realistic and concrete, stands up for his country and its public officials, and has an acute awareness of the consequences of the choices one makes as a public official and a willingness to take responsibility for those choices."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Former Vice President Cheney's speech yesterday was a model of clarity and serious argument about the most serious subject. The president's speech, like his address at Notre Dame, was empty of reasoned argument but brimming with cant and conclusory self-congratulation and stuffed with straw men."
• Allahpundit: "In hindsight, wasn't it awfully stupid of The One to rush out a national security speech to try to preempt Cheney? If he'd kept quiet, this still would have been a hit on righty blogs and Fox News but nowhere else. By jumping in, he created the sensational 'terror duel' storyline that's forcing the media to magnify this. At the very least, he should have waited a week or so and then given his speech as a rebuttal to Cheney's. For someone so message-savvy, he crapped the bed this time."

Liberal bloggers felt differently:

• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "It's too late, but if the media insists on characterizing this as some kind of face-off between competitors of equal stature, the least news outlets could do is to point out that Cheney was simply outclassed today. As tempting as it may be to compare the substance of the president's speech with the former vice president's, that's just not possible. Obama treated the nation like adults; Cheney treated us like the target of a con."
• publius: "Cheney's 'I Heart Torture' speech was, if nothing else, a clarifying moment. Like a painting that captures the essence of a historical age in a single image, today's split screen of Obama and Cheney reflected the very essence of the torture debate. And the contrast couldn't have been clearer -- the men, the values expressed, the appeals to our better and baser selves. It was all right there -- in that single image -- for all the future to see."
• The Huffington Post's Jacob Heilbrunn: "It was almost like an episode from Bloggingheads.tv. On the one side was President Obama speaking on national security in a measured and statesmanlike way. On the other side was former vice-president Dick Cheney trying to speak on national security in a measured and statesmanlike way. It wasn't even close."

CHENEY SPEECH: A Home Run?

Conservative bloggers loved Cheney's speech:

• Hillyer: "Hail to Richard Cheney, a great American."
• NRO's Rich Lowry: "Does anyone still doubt that it was a good and necessary thing for Cheney to be out counter-punching on national security?"
• Michelle Malkin: "I second Kathy Shaidle on Dick Cheney's speech: 'Cheney's speech was the best speech of the Bush administration. Too bad it was months/years late.'"
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "From where I sit, former vice president Dick Cheney had the easier case to make today. [...I]n a nutshell, the Cheney argument is, 'it worked.' And when he notes that after 9/11, the administration and all of the various government agencies managed to prevent another attack on American soil for 2,689 days, it's a rather illuminating figure. [...] If there is another successful and terrible terror attack, either on U.S. soil or on a U.S. target abroad, the immediate moment will be too terrible to hear the words 'I told you so.' But if, God forbid, that day comes, we will know that indeed Dick Cheney did tell us so."

On the other side of the blogosphere, Greenwald had a different reaction: "There's very little worth saying about the speech Dick Cheney delivered after Obama's. It's just the same recycled, extremist neoconservative pablum that drove the U.S. into the deep ditch in which it currently finds itself. [...] I spent most of the first couple of years after I began writing, in late 2005, focused principally on the corruption and destruction wreaked by America's Right (with a secondary focus on their Democratic and media enablers). I did that because, back then, that was who mattered. I tend to ignore the Cheneyite Right now because they matter far less and their glaring flaws are manifest to most people, not because I think they're any less worthy of scorn and contempt."

Sullivan: "[T]he former vice-president's despicable and disgraceful speech...confirms the very worst of him, and reveals just how callow, just how arrogant, and just how reckless and unrepentant this man is and has long been. There was not a whisper of regret or reflection; there was a series of lies and distortions, a reckless attack on a graceful successor, inheriting a world of intractable problems, and a reminder that while serious men and women will indeed move on, Cheney never will. He remains a threat to this country's constitution as he remains a stain on its honor and moral standing. I never believed I would hear a vice-president of the United States not simply defend torture but insist on pride in it, insist on its honor. But that is what he said, with that sly grin insisting that fear always beats reason, that violence always beats dialogue, and that torture is always an American value."

The Cato Institute's David Rittgers: "As Gene Healy has pointed out, [Cheney and Obama] agree on a lot more than they admit to. [...] However, the areas where they differ are important: torture, closing Guantanamo, criminal prosecution, and messaging. In these key areas, Obama edges out Cheney."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Maxed Out

Marshall:

"Setting aside the truly ludicrous idea that imprisoned terrorists are going to break out of prison like something out of an old Jimmy Cagney movie, I have heard from a number of readers who say we should be worried that these terrorist prisoners will spread their ideas within the prison system. If you imagine that these al Qaida dudes are going to be hanging around the prison yard, pumping iron and forming their own Islamist gang to go toe to toe with the Aryan Brotherhood and the Black Guerrilla Family that might make some sense. But I don't think these folks are really familiar with how the federal supermax facilities work these days -- particularly the premier one in Florence, Colorado, where all the high profile baddies are. All these guys are in solitary lockdown at least 23 hours a day, when they're allowed into a special exercise cage. Then there's the 78 cell 'control unit' for prisoners who are not allowed any contact with anyone. This article from the Post from a few years ago has more details."

LEST WE FORGET: Guantánamo Detainee Ruled Not Mentally Fit To Testify About Psychological Torture

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- In its first major hearing on the use of abusive interrogation tactics at Guantánamo Bay, a blue-ribbon panel found detainee Omar Khadr mentally unfit to testify about his years of psychological torture. 'Because of Mr. Khadr's fragile state due to unknown hours spent under the most brutal, mentally straining conditions, he cannot be trusted to speak competently on his own behalf,' said Rep. Kit Bond (R-MO), the panel's chairman. 'It is unfortunate that someone with such intimate knowledge of the horrors of waterboarding, stress positions, and induced hypothermia is so emotionally unstable. He bursts into tears at even the mention of mock torture.' Bond added that Khadr's confession of planning 9/11, the London train bombings, and the Iranian hostage crisis would be kept on the record."