Obama answers a question about Bradley Manning:
Q: [T]he State Department spokesman, PJ Crowley, said the treatment of Bradley Manning by the Pentagon is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid. And I’m wondering if you agree with that. Thank you, sir.
A: […] With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are. I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well.
There's a lot you could say about that response, but I'll keep it to this: Barack Obama isn't worth one of Bradley Manning's toenail clippings, and the fact that he remains one of the most respected and admired people on the planet even as he facilitates and glibly validates Manning's torture—with an army of apologists eager to rationalize away not only this, but far worse for him—is a sorry statement on humanity.
ADDING: In case that answer sounded familiar:
LAUER: Why is waterboarding legal, in your opinion?
BUSH: Because the lawyer said it was legal. He said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act. I'm not a lawyer, but you gotta trust the judgment of people around you and I do.
The Distant Ocean 
You state: Barack Obama isn’t worth one of Bradley Manning’s toenail clippings, and the fact that he remains one of the most respected and admired people on the planet even as he facilitates and glibly validates Manning’s torture—with an army of apologists eager to rationalize away not only this, but far worse for him—is a sorry statement on humanity.
Your anger is justified, but I disagree with your conclusion. Public opinion about Obama reflects poorly on people, yes, but I would like to preserve the distinction expressed in Charles Schultz’s line of dialogue given to his character Schroeder (clearly intended to represent the height of Germanic culture, as expressed by Goethe and Beethoven): “I love humanity – it’s people I can’t stand.“
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I’d agree with that criticism. I meant the “sorry statement” as much more about the apologists than the admirers as a whole, but I didn’t get that across, and the point I’d actually set out to make isn’t captured by anything I wrote. I plead laziness; some thoughts just roll out onto the page but others fight, and I didn’t feel like spending the time to wrestle this one down.
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LAUER: Why is waterboarding legal, in your opinion?
BUSH: Because the lawyer said it was legal. He said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act. I’m not a lawyer, but you gotta trust the judgment of people around you and I do.
NEW YORK TIMES: It’s not torture when we do it.
~
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Isn’t this how our species works?
We, as a species, love celebrity. We have the ability to simultaneously dehumanize and — wow, do we have a word for this? — ultra-humanize, or perhaps deify, humans with a lot of power and influence. A celebrity’s significant acts are cut off from moral analysis because many of them are cut off from actual volition. Thus, we have people that state that Obama “had” to do one evil act or another. Similarly, some people interviewed in 2004, when told that Kerry would stop the Iraq war (whether or not that’s true is irrelevant for the moment), didn’t believe that anyone could stop it. It’s like you declared that someone was trying to stop the weather.
People can be very, very stupid and perverse, with the latter being the real problem. If people think that powerful leaders are sort-of like themselves and generally mean well but don’t have serious agency — yes, that statement is full of contradictions — then they will never be able to even recognize that a bad leader has done bad acts in the first place.
This isn’t an Obama phenomenon. This is. . . gah, I’m ill today. A feature of authoritarianism? A creature of our celebrification (is that a neologism?)? Frazzle-brained now I am, but I am confident this isn’t an Obama-thing. Powerful assholes across the planet have been respected for milennia. People just get used to it and make banal evil the minimum standard. If that’s you’re floor, then any leader who just refrains from doing “extra” evil gets props. Torture is standardized, so torture doesn’t count. If torture doesn’t count, then repealling DADT, for example, means you’re swell: no negatives and all positives. (Compare to Bush Jr. Bush’s problem is that he didn’t do anything positive: his supporters negated his negatives, but he never threw them a bone. He wasn’t even nice to them.)
Maybe I’m trying too hard. Maybe the point is just really vile and nasty and simple: humans are snivelling power-worshippers.
Or am I wrong and is the Obama-appreciation more egregious than normal?
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I have to agree that humans, or at least Americans, are snivelling power-worshippers. I recently tried to help organize an activist group. A voluntary committee was called at the first meeting, to propose a structure for the group, and to report back at the next meeting. The Organising Committee was immediately turned into a permanent steering committee by fiat of one of the founders of the group. I could get no traction in trying to have a vote on clarifying at least a process for this, and a couple of members even said, “You have to have strong leaders”!
The guy is really a bully, too. He calls you ‘Sister This’ and ‘Brother That’, compliments you, and completely disregards your concerns. Needless to say, I’m giving this group a pass! Too bad, because it would have been located in a large suburban community that needs some rabble-rousing – but don’t they all?
I think Americans will not save themselves, they are so stupefyed by the all-encompassing media training them into robotic consumers. I’ve tried to get Americans to take citizenship seriously since the ’60s, but with not much result. But quitting isn’t an option for me, and right now is the closest to a climate for change that I’ve seen yet.
If people can be gotten to listen again to Obama’s campaign rhethoric, it’s so obvious that they were suckered that maybe something will click, and they’ll realize the slate needs to be cleared and new parties formed.
There’s a new film called ‘Lifting the Veil’ that I can’t link to right now, but google it. It does just that, and it’s shocking indeed to hear the great things he said.
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Sister? Brother? Is he either a) in a church or b) a black person addressing other black people or c) creepy as all get-out?
Either way, it might be that giving the group a pass is the wrong idea. Bad organizations drain a society, and undermining them can be a net social good — but I’m not on the ground with you there, so your time may well be better spent.
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This guy Crowley has seemed like a major league moron ever since I first heard of him. I saw a MSM coverage story describe Crowley as a “respected” foreign policy expert. I can’t find any information on him to warrant such high praise. In the first place, I believe that his initial appointment says a lot about Liberals’ lack of seriousness regarding our Nation’s security. On this subject alone, I have been proudly voting anti-Democrat Party since I have been legally allowed to.
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