Obama’s stance on human rights and civil rights
This column sums it up neatly—and also suggests that people are starting to wake up about the direction the country is being taken:
The forced “resignation” of State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley — for the mortal sin of denouncing the abusive detention of Bradley Manning — has apparently proven to be a clarifying moment for many commentators about what the President is and how he functions in these areas. Writing at Time‘s Swampland, Mark Benjamin identifies the real crux of the controversy:
Free speech advocates are shocked, and, as I wrote last week on TIME.com, concerned over Obama’s record as the most aggressive prosecutor of suspected government leakers in U.S. history.
Those advocates have wondered whether the penchant for secrecy in the Obama administration comes from the President, or those around him. Obama’s statement on Manning, followed by Crowley’s resignation, seem to suggest some of this comes from the President himself.
It’s long been obvious that the Obama administration’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers “comes from the President himself,” notwithstanding his campaign decree — under the inspiring title “Protect Whistleblowers” — that “such acts of courage and patriotism should be encouraged rather than stifled.” The inhumane treatment of Manning plainly has two principal effects: it intimidates future would-be whistleblowers into knowing that they, too, will be abused without recourse, and it will break him psychologically (as prolonged solitary confinement and degrading treatment inevitably do) to render him incapable of a defense and to ensure he provides whatever statements they want about WikiLeaks. Other than Obama’s tolerance for the same detainee abuse against which he campaigned and his ongoing subservience to the military that he supposedly “commands,” it is the way in which this Manning/Crowley behavior bolsters the regime of secrecy and the President’s obsessive attempts to destroy whistleblowing that makes this episode so important and so telling.
Denunciations of the President from his own supporters are as intensive and pervasive here as they have been for any other prior incident, if not more so. Matt Yglesias wrote that “to hold a person without trial in solitary confinement under degrading conditions is a perversion of justice” and that it’s a ”sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning.” Andrew Sullivan — writing under the headline ”Obama Owns the Treatment of Manning Now” — said that Crowley was forced out “for the offense of protesting against the sadistic military treatment of Bradley Manning,” that “the president has now put his personal weight behind prisoner abuse,” and that “Obama is directly responsible for the inhumane treatment of an American citizen.” Meanwhile, Ezra Klein previews his denunciation of the President’s treatment of Manning and Crowley by announcing that it’s his first ever lede “that isn’t about economic or domestic policy” but rather is ”about right and wrong,” and then questions “whether the Obama administration is keeping sight of its values now that it holds power.” Those strong words are all from supporters of the President.
Elsewhere, The Philadelphia Daily News‘ progressive columnist Will Bunch accuses Obama of “lying” during the campaign by firing Crowley and endorsing “the bizarre and immoral treatment of the alleged Wikileaks leaker.” In The Guardian, Obama voter Daniel Ellsberg condemns “this shameful abuse of Bradley Manning,” arguing that it “amounts to torture” and “makes me feel ashamed for the [Marine] Corps,” in which Ellsberg served three years, including nine months at Quantico. Baltimore Sun columnist Ron Smith asks: ”Why is the U.S. torturing Private Manning?,” while UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman — who only last year hailed Obama as “the greatest moral leader of our lifetime” and eagerly suggested on Friday (before Obama’s Press Conference) that Crowley was speaking for Obama — mocked Obama’s defense of the Manning treatment as “clueless on the Bush level” and now says of Crowley’s firing: ”The Torturers Win One,” while lamenting Obama’s overt support for a policy that he calls “unconscionable and un-American and borderline criminal.”
But the news isn’t all bad for the President. . .
