Mark Kleiman Sees a Weak President

MK:

A weak President « The Reality-Based Community: Asked about the extraordinary conditions imposed on Bradley Manning and the even more extraordinary remarks of the State Department spokesman dumping on DoD for that mistreatment, Barack Obama sounds completely clueless: clueless at the Bush level:

I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assured me that they are. I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well.

Surely the President knows as well as anyone else that asking people accused of maltreating a prisoner whether the prisoner is being properly treated is like asking a drunk how much he’s had to drink. Since Barack Obama is not a fool, this can only mean that he’s reluctant to countermand Gates and Gates’s subordinates. (Note that he didn’t say that he’d had the allegations checked out and found that they were false.)...

[I]f the Republicans ran a candidate who took a forthright stand against torture, even if that person were otherwise “conservative” in the degraded contemporary sense of that term – committed to making the poor poorer, the country more ignorant, and the planet less habitable – this issue alone would be a cogent reason to vote for that Republican.... But Charles Fried isn’t going to get the Republican nomination, and the context for the President’s display of weak knees on this issue is the drumfire of “soft on terror” charges from the GOP and its tame media...

And a strong Secretary of State:

“Ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid” « The Reality-Based Community: That’s State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley on the torture of Bradley Manning. I would have used stronger language, but I’m glad he said it. And I very much doubt that he would have said it if his boss hadn’t wanted it said.