Obama and the Final Delusion

Conservative columnists like Charles Krauthammer have been consoling themselves with a final delusion that the Obama administration would continue the policies of George Bush

Except for Richard Nixon, no president since Harry Truman has left office more unloved than George W. Bush. Truman's rehabilitation took decades. Bush's will come sooner. Indeed, it has already begun. The chief revisionist? Barack Obama. Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds -- the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition. It's not just the retention of such key figures as Defense Secretary Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the past year. It's the continuity of policy

But the Bush Legacy Project has already had a bad day today, and it still isn't noon.

On Day Two of his administration, President Barack Obama began overhauling U.S.
treatment of terror suspects, signing orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, review military trials of suspects and ban the harshest interrogation methods.

MSN views the closing of Guantanamo as the most important item here, but by now it should be evident that mandating that interrogators follow the Army Field Manual and banning torture (in other words, "the harshest interrogration methods) is more important.

Banning practices defined as torture is one more indication that the Obama administration is going to treat torture as a crime.

Major figures in the Bush administration might find that "their legacy" includes defending themselves against criminal charges.

Rumors of Competence: Obama's First Day

Are there any allegorical figures for political competence? Allegorical figures of liberty like Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People above are famous. Figures of justice, virtue, and wisdom also abound. But what about the know-how it takes to enact what is right in a complex and contraditory environment?

What about competence?

In some ways, political competence is more like an artisan skill than anything else. In political competence, elements of creativity and technical skill are mobilized to provide a practical benefit for others. The Bush administration put such a high value on values, loyalty, and membership in the conservative movement that they downgraded competence as a political virtue. The Bush people didn't want to promote peace in the Middle East or solve the problems betweent he U. S. and Iran. So there was no question about employing competence in these areas. They didn't want to forcefully regulate the financial industry, pharmaceuticals, or agriculture either. The Bush people let FEMA fall apart and haven't put it back together again despite Katrina.

It will take a long time for the federal government to regain the competence level it had when George Bush took the oath of office in 2001.

But there is a rumor of competence on the horizon. According to The Jewish Week, the Obama administration is going to appoint George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East. Mitchell is a former Senator and Democratic majority leader from Maine who was instrumental in forging peace between the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Given that Mitchell has such a stellar reputation for persistence, even-handedness, and integrity, appointing him would be a sign that Obama wants to forge a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. According to The Jewish Weekly, the Bush administration was mainly interested in letting the Israelis do what they want. Therefore they did not need or want somebody as competent as Mitchell to work on a settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

But the rumor of Mitchell's appointment is a sign that the Obama administration might actually want to accomplish something.

Israelis Consider French Proposal. It appears that Israel is considering a French proposal for a 48 hour cease-fire "to see if Palestinian militants will stop their rocket attacks on southern Israel . . . . Any offer would be coupled with a threat to send in ground troops if the rocket fire continues."

Who knows. The Israelis may decide that they've made their point about the invincibility of their military and accept.

But that doesn't seem likely.

French President Nikolas Sarkozy made the cease-fire proposal within the framework of the Quartet--a group of international powers trying to stabilize the Middle East. Incorporating the U. S., UN, EU, and Russia, the formation of the Quartet is yet another sign of the failure of the Bush foreign policy vision. Much of American policy during the early Bush years had been geared toward freeing the U. S. from the "constraints" of global institutions like the United Nations and the traditional NATO alliance with European countries.

But with the formation of the Quartet, it appears that the U. S. is involved in a new kind of global institution that will once again constrain American policy. Far from being the "new Roman empire," the U. S. is just a very large element in the global institutional picture.

John Bolton must be rolling over in his grave (not that he's actually dead).

The other important consideration here is that the U. S. is not the lead element in international political initiatives either.

That honor is going to the French.

Boxed in by its commitment to support Israel, the Bush administration does not have the interest or the will to actively pursue cease-fire proposals. That's making us secondary players in a region where we have something like 150,00 troops and the EU, UN, Russians, and everybody else has none.

Only the Bush administration is ineffective enough to turn such overwhelming military superiority into such pathetic diplomatic weakness.

Bush Can't Quite . . . The Bush administration blunders on pardons as well. They just can't quite seem to get it right.