All posts tagged "obama"
Transcript of President Obama’s remarks
President Obama’s Nobel Reaction - NYTimes.com
I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women and all Americans want to build, a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents.
Precious normality »
EXERPTS
His use of the English language, frequently derided by his opponents during the election campaign as verbal garlands, has proven to be a useful and necessary tool of government at a time of profound crisis.
He is both bold and measured. It is called nuance - and America and the world have been yearning for it.
It appears that Mr Obama understands the unavoidable truth that reality is a bit more complex than most politicians usually care to admit.
Without this degree of honesty he could not even begin to launch the dramatic changes that he is hoping to engineer in this country.
Pragmatist and Law - Supreme Court »
EXERPTS
Pragmatism has its detractors, and in a confirmation battle, Mr. Obama’s nominee could face charges that he or she does not give enough weight to formal law. But although Mr. Obama is results-oriented, he retained an overall skepticism for what courts can accomplish, said David Strauss, a former colleague at University of Chicago. In Mr. Obama’s due process and voting right classes, he showed students the broad failures of Reconstruction-era amendments that tried to establish equality for blacks.
Even as law review president, Mr. Obama de-emphasized his own views and instead made himself a channel for those of others. His decision making was “about the group sentiment and what the group majority might agree to,” said Nancy McCullough, a fellow editor.
Obama to Select Justice - Justice Résumé »
EXERPTS
The current court is the first to be made up entirely of former federal appeals court judges. And only a few of those appeals courts at that: seven of the justices served on what might be called the court of appeals for the Acela circuit, in Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.
In voting against the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as a senator, Mr. Obama said that “adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon.”
My Tortured Decision »
FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified.
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Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).
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We must ensure that the mistakes behind the use of these techniques are never repeated. We’re making a good start: President Obama has limited interrogation techniques to the guidelines set in the Army Field Manual, and Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, says he has banned the use of contractors and secret overseas prisons for terrorism suspects (the so-called black sites). Just as important, we need to ensure that no new mistakes are made in the process of moving forward — a real danger right now.
Bush's - Law »
- NYT: Any Indictment of Interrogation Policy Makers Would Face Several Hurdl
Efforts to prosecute the high-level Bush administration officials who created and authorized the interrogation program in 2002 - like Vice President Dick Cheney; the C.I.A. director, George J. Tenet; the defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld; and Alberto R. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel - also “would be extremely difficult,” said Eric Posner, a University of Chicago law professor.
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The shield against prosecution provided by the Bush legal team’s assurances has led some critics to focus on the role played by the lawyers themselves, like Mr. Cheney’s counsel, David S. Addington; Mr. Rumsfeld’s counsel, William J. Haynes II; and the authors of the Justice Department memorandums: John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury.
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“No one is above the law,” Mr. Holder said. “So we’ll see what happens.”
