1115.org

(1) More Bald-faced Lies From Barack Obama

If Barack Obama sits back and doesn’t “block the court-ordered release of photographs depicting the abuse of detainees held by U.S. authorities abroad … the most direct consequence of releasing them … would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger.”

Just to be clear what we’re talking about,

The photos were assembled as part of about 200 criminal investigations conducted before and after the disclosure in 2004 of widespread prisoner abuse by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib, the former Iraqi prison that the U.S. military turned into a detention and intelligence-gathering center.

So there are thousands of photographs, assembled in the course of hundreds of criminal investigations into the abuse of detainees held by U.S. authorities abroad. And our President (the open, transparent, forthright, honest one who walks on water, not the other guy) continues to tell the American people with a straight face exactly what the other guy used to tell us—namely that only “a small number of individuals” were responsible for detainee abuse.

Why does Obama consistently continue to preserve Bush-era secrets and propagate Bush-era lies?

(2) Funny world we live in

As White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs helpfully informed us yesterday, “Nothing is added by the release of the photo, right?”

But here’s how our funny world works, according to Barack Obama:
— If the photos are released, they would serve to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger.
— But when the President of the United States certifies to all concerned that he has seen the photos and he believes very strongly that releasing them would serve to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in danger, there’s no harm and no foul.
— As long as the photos are not released, everything is hunky dory. Knowing that hundreds of these photographs exist, knowing that the President of the United States regards them as dangerously inflammatory — so much so that he is willing to back out of a previously executed agreement (see below) — that doesn’t count. As long as the photographs are not seen, they don’t count.

Our simple-minded enemies are inflamed not by what they know, only by what they see. That’s mighty cooperative of them, under the circumstances.

(3) Their Word Is Not Their Bond

Here’s the backstory to the now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t flap:

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request in October 2003 for all photographs pertaining to U.S. military detention operations. It filed a lawsuit the following year after that request was denied.

Last September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ordered the photographs released. The Bush administration challenged the ruling, but the court denied that petition in March.
[...]
In an April 23 letter to Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Obama administration stated that “the parties have reached an agreement that the Defense Department will produce all the responsive images by May 28, 2009.” Press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that Obama had not viewed the photos at that time.

Here’s what Gibbs said back on April 24:

The Second Circuit Court ruled in December of 2008 that the photos had to be released. The previous administration lost a court case on that. The Department of Justice decided based on the ruling that it was hopeless to appeal, and a mandate ordering the release of those photos came Monday. And the administration, the Pentagon, and the court entered into an agreement to release those photos.

They are now breaking an agreement entered into with a federal court, all to pursue a hopeless appeal.

Is there any word for such double-faced about-facery other than “Bushian”?

(4) Who’re You Gonna Trust?

After deciding to block the release of the photographs because of how dangerously inflammatory they are, Barack Obama with a straight face tried to minimize their significance:

Gibbs said Obama has seen a representative sample of the photos, which the president described yesterday as “not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”

But one congressional staff member, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the photos, said the pictures are more graphic than those that have been made public from Abu Ghraib. “When they are released, there will be a major outcry for an investigation by a commission or some other vehicle,” the staff member said.

(5) A Hot Tip

Get your money in while they’re still offering decent odds. One of these days we are bound to hear Obama go:

If you knew that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad had information about an imminent threat on the United States, information that would result in the death of your family members, the death of people you care about and love, and that if he were waterboarded, you would be able to get that information and prevent the attack, you wouldn’t do it?