On Thu, 21 May 2009, Gawker was quoted:
> <http://gawker.com/5263813/michael-isikoff-reveals-details-of-secret-white-house-torture-meeting>
The FT had a similar take yesterday (attached below)
Their story came to the conclusion that it all came down to the public option on health care -- that if he folded on that, the love affair was over, but if he came through on that, all of this nasty war and cruelty stuff would be forgiven.
Of course an hour ago Obama just gave his speech on Guantanamo so we'll see how that pans out. It's his patented "more perfect union speech" that he gives every time, adjusted to the occasion. It was pretty good at Notre Dame; we'll see if it works here. He really wrapped himself in the constitution this time -- he filmed the speech standing in front of it at the National Archives.
Michael
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4e3a9fd6-44d7-11de-82d6-00144feabdc0.html
May 20 2009 Financial Times
Left decries move towards centre ground By Edward Luce in Washington
If any contrast were needed with his predecessor, Barack Obama could point to the latest downpayment on his promise to tackle global warming with tougher car fuel-efficiency standards.
But where some see the new US president making an abrupt change from the policies of George W. Bush, a growing band of liberal critics see continuity. Among their ranks, there is a new moniker for Mr Obama's administration: "Bush 2.0".
Groups such as Moveon.org, the anti-war movement that is at the core of the liberal "netroots", compare Mr Obama's policies in the "war on terror" with those of Mr Bush. These include the president's decision last week to revive the military tribunals to try alleged terrorists, which he had condemned on the campaign trail.
David Obey, chairman of the House appropriations committee, is among those expressing misgivings about Mr Obama's stepped-up war in Afghanistan.
Last week Mr Obey reluctantly approved an $83bn (E61bn, £54bn) bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but gave warning that he might not do so a year from now.
Some critics see continuity in Mr Obama's approach to the financial crisis. More specifically, they see a Paulson-Geithner approach (after Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner, the successive Treasury secretaries) which, they say, is scripted by Wall Street.
On the broader economic front, critics say Mr Obama is reviving "Clintonomics" without the budget surpluses. "The 3.6m jobs which the stimulus is forecasted by the White House to create and save pale when compared with the 13.7m officially unemployed or the 28.5m effectively unemployed," says Leo Hindery, a Democratic businessman close to the trade unions.
"Compounding this seeming inattention to a broad jobs recovery is the seeming over-attention to resuscitating -- rather than fundamentally reforming -- the banking system which was responsible for the $2.8 trillion of credit losses that we now have to absorb."
Mr Obama's real test, however, is likely to be over the contents of his healthcare plan, which will be made clear in the next few weeks. Some are nervous that he will jettison his promise of including a government-run insurance plan in the bill, which the White House is hoping will pass the House of Representatives by the end of July.
A number of centrist Democrats in the Senate, including Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh and Max Baucus, have echoed the complaints of health insurance companies, which say that a competing public plan would eventually drive them out of business. But supporters of the public plan, which is rapidly becoming the ultimate measure among liberals of Mr Obama's reformist credentials, say that without it the insurance companies would quickly revert to their tried and tested ways of making money -- outsmarting the regulators to exclude the sick and those with "pre-existing" medical conditions.
"If President Obama shows courage and sticks to the public plan against the opposition of the insurance companies then these other liberal complaints, which are mostly about dealing with the Bush legacy, will be forgotten," says Jim Morone, a political scientist at Brown University in Rhode Island. "If he ducks on this once-in-a-generation moment to overhaul US healthcare, then liberal disenchantment will harden."
Officials say such fears are unfounded. Unlike on cap-and-trade carbon emission policies, where Mr Obama's allies in Congress have been forced to water down some of his campaign promises in order to win the support of "rustbelt Democrats", the president can push healthcare through the Senate with a simple majority of 51.
The Democrats have 59 seats. Normally bills must clear a 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster. By linking healthcare to the annual budget, Mr Obama can avoid that restriction. "Nothing has changed on the public healthcare plan," says a White House spokeswoman.
Mr Obama has given mixed signals. While making it clear that healthcare reform remains the centrepiece of his domestic agenda, he also continues to extol the virtues of bipartisanship, even though Republicans would vote against any bill containing a public plan.
"I have always believed that it is better to talk than not to talk," Mr Obama said in his latest radio address. "This has been an alien notion in Washington for far too long, but we are seeing that the ways of Washington are beginning to change."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009