Monday, April 13, 2009

Legal left cools toward Obama

"A growing chorus on the legal left is cooling toward President Barack Obama as a result of recent actions by the Justice Department vigorously defending the Bush administration in what it termed the war on terror.

“'Obama Position on Illegal Spying: Worse Than Bush,' a large graphic declared over the weekend on the home page of a respected group advocating freedom on the Internet, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"Obama has been pilloried by a liberal TV icon who was one of President George W. Bush’s most vociferous critics, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.

“'During his run for the presidency, Barack Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, argued strongly against the Bush administration’s use of executive authority, including its self-justification, its rationalization of the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens,” Olbermann said on his show last week. “That was then. This is now. ... Welcome to change you cannot believe in — or sue over.'

"Obama is also under withering attack from an attorney who was one of the most widely read critics of Bush’s legal strategy in the war on terror, Glenn Greenwald. He recently blasted Obama administration moves as 'extremist' and 'bizarre.'

“'Reading this brief from the Obama DOJ is so striking — and more than a little depressing — given how indistinguishable it is from everything that poured out of the Bush DOJ regarding secrecy powers in order to evade all legal accountability,' he wrote on Salon last week, before calling his fellow civil libertarians to rise up. 'It is simply inexcusable for those who spent the last several years screaming when the Bush administration did exactly this to remain silent now or, worse, to search for excuses to justify this behavior,' he said."

The definition for that behavior is:

A. Hyponosis

B. Hypocrisy

C. Hypodermic

D. Hippopotamus

Choose the best answer.