Andrew Sullivan: The Re-Balancing

[babylonsister]

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/the-rebalancing.html

The Re-Balancing

by Andrew


I'm on vacation, I know, but a speech of this maturity and magnitude demands some kind of comment on a blog that has been deeply disturbed by and engaged in these questions of the laws of war, torture, abuse, detention, interrogation and the like over the last few years. I reprint it here in its entirety, as I have many such speeches from Barack Obama since the beginning of his campaign for the presidency.

I regard it as the national security equivalent of his Jeremiah Wright speech. Why? Because it managed to reach a place apart from, while being fully part of, the furious debates we have been having. These debates are vital, and the notion that we can simply move on from the Bush-Cheney era without some accounting or reform is both empirically and morally false. We are struggling for a sustainable, long-term balance between security against a ruthless and unprincipled and lawless enemy - and a law of war, and a judicial system and a civilization that we rightly love and want to defend. This struggle will be a long one, and an extremely difficult one, and the most profound of the insights that the president offered today is as banal as it is central:

There is a core principle that we will apply to all of our actions: even as we clean up the mess at Guantanamo, we will constantly re-evaluate our approach, subject our decisions to review from the other branches of government, and seek the strongest and most sustainable legal framework for addressing these issues in the long-term.

snip//

I can say this after watching the speech and reading its text: by his sobriety and balance, care and precision, Obama has sketched a way forward that is a function of both war and law, seeking no shallow political edge in an area that should never have been abused by Rovian cynicism in the first place. At first blush, I find the balance near pitch-perfect - on detention, torture, interrogation and Gitmo.

Like the president, I am under no illusions as to the enemy we face and the need to fight it. But like the president, I was deeply disturbed by both the tools that the last president used - above all the tool of torture - and the rationale of uncheckable and lawless executive supremacy that underpinned it. Something very profound went very wrong. We all need to understand that at a minimum, however we want to move forward.

I wish the war could be over. It isn't. More important, I do not want America to be over, and, thanks to this remarkable figure in a terribly divided and difficult time, it isn't. The system which relies on law not men, on decency not barbarism, on democratic balance not autocratic deciderism is the system we are fighting for. It won, as Obama noted, even before the last election when two anti-torture candidates, McCain and Obama, emerged from the pack. But its long-term victory was never assured.

I feel much more confidence now that victory - for both our system and the war against Jihadism - is possible. Civil liberties purists will quibble and fight. Cheney-dead-enders will continue to stoke fear and division. I think this is the right balance - and deserves our vocal and persistent support.

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. I guess Sully can only go so far into the light

Apparently, he has moved from a full throated Bush enabler to a right leaning Obama policy position. I do agree about a vocal, persistent support of civil rights and the rule of law.

[MarjorieG]

4. But what do purists of civil rights, like Rachel, do about these men and problem detainees?

[Jennicut]

5. I like Andrew and I appreciate the fact that he has come so very far from where he was

[Cha]

2. Rec'd~ Thank you, Andrew Sullivan and babylonsister!

Andrew call President Obama "a remarkable man" and I think so too.

We needed someone remarkable to fight the death throes of cheney, the corporatemedia, and their ilk.

[Honeycombe8]

3. How true! And what a gift to be able to write that eloquently. Did you catch "deciderism"?

I think he's right about Obama. Very right.