One very telling sign that Obama is a moderate is that he has not gone after members of the Bush administration for war crimes (much to the chagrin of the far-left). In fact, he has said some downright nice things about not only Bush, but Reagan and other Republicans. While I admire him for his graciousness, even I have to wonder why he makes a point of praising Republicans. Not only does it completely piss off his left-wing base, it doesn’t seem to help with Republicans, most of whom don’t seem capable of saying anything even remotely nice about Obama.
I was thinking about this while reading a blog post by Jan Herman. It is short, so here it is in its entirety:
It’s 9/11: Eraser-in-Chief ♥ Bullshitter-in-Chief
When Barack Obama rebuffed calls for an independent truth commission, choosing not to investigate George W. Bush and his cronies as war criminals, he forfeited whatever moral authority he might have had as president. In his Aug. 31 Oval Office speech announcing “the end of the combat mission in Iraq” he even heaped praise on Bush for his so-called patriotism. At yesterday’s White House news conference he actually said, “One of the things that I most admired about President Bush was, after 9/11, him being crystal-clear about the fact that we were not at war with Islam.” Does he really believe that? Does he think anybody believes that? What else does Obama “most admire” about his predecessor? He must be kidding.
I’m of two minds about this. Part of me thinks it would have been really important for America to make it really clear that torture is a war crime and will not be tolerated, and that even the president is not above the law. On the other hand, I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue if we started prosecution.
What do you think? Did Obama do the right thing by focusing on the future, working on the economy, ending two wars, health care reform, and other important tasks? Or has he indeed forfeited his moral authority?