Obama, the civil liberties disaster, and the Democratic Stockholm syndrome

jonathan turley...

One man is primarily responsible for the disappearance of civil liberties from the national debate, and he is Barack Obama. While many are reluctant to admit it, Obama has proved a disaster not just for specific civil liberties but the civil liberties cause in the United States.

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But perhaps the biggest blow to civil liberties is what he has done to the movement itself. It has quieted to a whisper, muted by the power of Obama's personality and his symbolic importance as the first black president as well as the liberal who replaced Bush. Indeed, only a few days after he took office, the Nobel committee awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize without his having a single accomplishment to his credit beyond being elected. Many Democrats were, and remain, enraptured.

It's almost a classic case of the Stockholm syndrome, in which a hostage bonds with his captor despite the obvious threat to his existence. Even though many Democrats admit in private that they are shocked by Obama's position on civil liberties, they are incapable of opposing him. Some insist that they are simply motivated by realism: A Republican would be worse. However, realism alone cannot explain the utter absence of a push for an alternative Democratic candidate or organized opposition to Obama's policies on civil liberties in Congress during his term. It looks more like a cult of personality. Obama's policies have become secondary to his persona.

Ironically, had Obama been defeated in 2008, it is likely that an alliance for civil liberties might have coalesced and effectively fought the government's burgeoning police powers. A Gallup poll released this week shows 49% of Americans, a record since the poll began asking this question in 2003, believe that "the federal government poses an immediate threat to individuals' rights and freedoms." Yet the Obama administration long ago made a cynical calculation that it already had such voters in the bag and tacked to the right on this issue to show Obama was not "soft" on terror. He assumed that, yet again, civil libertarians might grumble and gripe but, come election day, they would not dare stay home.

This calculation may be wrong.

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In time, the election of Barack Obama may stand as one of the single most devastating events in our history for civil liberties. Now the president has begun campaigning for a second term. He will again be selling himself more than his policies, but he is likely to find many civil libertarians who simply are not buying.

i'm not buying...

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NOW we see that they were lying: a blinding glimpse of the obvious

it's a good thing rosa brooks is directing her comments to traditional media outlets and not including the blogosphere and non-traditional news sources...

Like freed hostages who gradually cease to identify with their captors, mainstream media outlets seem to have been seized by a new spirit of liberation in their coverage of the Bush administration. Lately, we've seen a rash of astonished, outraged stories and editorials relating to the administration's recently discovered malfeasance.

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The new media message is righteous and clear: Administration officials tricked us — all of us! They assured us that everything they did was legal … necessary … for our own good … but now we see that they were lying!

Well, yeah. So what else is new?

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Bush and Cheney valued power and expedience, nothing more — and much of the time, they didn't even bother to cover their tracks when they bypassed long-standing laws and regulations. Similarly, when it came to compliance with our laws and constitutional traditions, they hardly even pretended to give a hoot.

So why did it take us so long to notice?

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It's hard not to conclude that collectively, we were all too cowardly, slothful or puffed up with our own self-importance to ask the right questions and stand up for principle. The administration didn't trick us; we tricked ourselves.

Someday, the Bush era may come to seem like a bad dream, a shameful, inexplicable interlude in American history. We're right to be outraged by Bush and Cheney, but we should also save a bit of outrage for when we look in the mirror.

yeah, well, rosa, the media STILL aren't taking nearly the forceful stance they should be taking in light of the illegal outrages perpetrated on the citizens of the united states and half of the rest of the world by the criminal occupants of the white house... as supposed keepers of the flame of truth, journalists should insure that these outrages are on display on the front pages of newspapers, as lead stories on local, network and cable news, and front and center on every news website, daily, across the country... citizens and media alike can't afford a minute's rest until that cabal is removed from office...

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