Maybe some delayed sense of guilt is prodding Victor Davis Hanson to new hallucinatory heights. But can we just establish that Obama’s clear executive orders ending torture and extraordinary rendition to regimes that torture, and revocation of Bush’s claims of extra-constitutional power to name any human being an "enemy combatant" and disappear them into black sites, constitute a very clear break from the lawlessness of the recent past? Give us a call when Obama’s record includes the random imprisonment and abuse of thousands, and torturing at least 25 detainees to death, will ya?
More to the point: the far right needs to get its stories straight. If they want to argue – as they surely will – that the first Islamist terror attack under Obama will be due to his abandonment of torture, then they cannot simultaneously argue that he hasn’t changed Bush’s interrogation, rendition and detention policies. I know logic isn’t exactly their strong suit, but one might as well remind them it exists.
The Dish 