Top Obama Lawyers Tell Congress the President Can Do Anything In War On Terrorists

From AlterNet:

That jockeying and obfuscation reveals that there are many similarities between the Bush and Obama administrations in their preferred means of going after those they judge to be terrorists. Superficially, President Obama may say the Bush-era tools and tactics are overreacting, which prompted ex-Vice President Dick Cheney to go on CNN as recently as 2011 and urge Obama to reconsider his words. However, on substance, both White Houses have embraced the same approaches.

And

Going deeper into the legal thicket, both McLeod and Preston said that the Constitution’s Article II gives the president all the authority he needs to take military action. That view was initially promoted in the Bush White House by David Addington, Cheney’s chief counsel, who constantly told his legal critics that you are either were with us or against us.

More here.

Conservatives, let this be a grave lesson to you.  It doesn't matter if you think he's your guy.  The point is that the Office of the President will not always be occupied by your guy, and when you hand expanded powers over to the presidency, they are there forever, and will be used eventually by people you don't like and don't trust.  Actually, this was obvious at the time, so you guys really, really, really screwed up when you trusted W with more power than a president ought to have.  The chickens have come home to roost.  Obama's foreign policy is YOUR FAULT.

Liberals and moderates, you also should let this be a grave lesson.  Do not give into fear.  Do not allow fear to be your justification for abandoning the Constitutional principles that have guided this nation for nearly two and a half centuries.  9/11 was both startling and deeply disturbing.  But it was not Pearl Harbor!  It was not the first shot in a horrific total war.  It was obvious even at the time that another terrorist attack on such a scale was highly unlikely.  And terrorism was NEVER a threat to the nation's existence, which was also obvious at the time.  But the vast majority of American liberals and moderates just rolled over and went crying to the great patron for protection, giving him pretty much anything he wanted.  Because you guys were irrationally afraid and just gave up on thinking clearly.  Bush's foreign policy was YOUR FAULT.  And that means Obama's awful foreign policy is YOUR FAULT, too.

Another note to liberals.  Obama was never one of us.  He is not one of us.  This was obvious to anybody who did, say, thirty minutes of actual research back in 2008.  All you had to do was go look at his website.  But you guys were so high on good vibes and "change" rhetoric that you let yourselves believe that he was your man.  I mean, okay, a LOT of people allowed themselves to be fooled in this way, including the people who award the Nobel Peace Prize.  But still.  It's an appalling lapse in judgment and critical thinking, and that's what we liberals are supposed to do really well.  Stop thinking with your hearts and start thinking with your heads or we're going to be made into chumps again and again.

And now the President can do whatever he wants.  Good work, America.  You suck.

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