A Delusional President?

David Bromwich has a well written piece at the London Review of Books:

 ...on 21 May, he [Obama] gave a speech on law and national security at the National Archives: the worst speech of his presidency. He  said that his paramount duty was ‘to keep the American people safe’: that word, safe, which was accorded a primacy by George W. Bush it had not been given by any earlier president, Obama himself now ranked ahead of the words justice, right, liberty and constitution.

And if this is truly what Obama thinks, it means that he has now accepted one of the basic precepts of  the right; namely, that the security of the United States must be defended at all costs, even if it means that everything which these putative patriots proffer as the embodiment of our nation- justice, freedom, equality, democracy, and a government which is answerable to its people- can simply be cast aside the moment any threat, real or imagined, is perceived.

These are the same people who appeal to our founding fathers on a daily basis. But our founding fathers sacrificed their personal security for these ideals, while these cowards would sacrifice our ideals for the illusion of security.

Those same people who would send our soldiers halfway around the world to die for those ideals can't be bothered to defend them here at home.

A foreign government that tortured, claimed the power of indefinite detention, refused to allow defendants a day in court, and considered itself literally above the law in any matter which it deems relevant to whatever it decides is "national security" would be condemned by those some people who support those actions when committed by the United States.

Remember this the next time some politician blathers on about "American Exceptionalism".