One of the big digs made against the central theme of LarsThorwald’s Kos diary is that while Lars holds that Obama is leaving the door open to prosecute Bush Admin criminality, Obama had, per Michael Isikoff’s account of a meeting Obama had with several civil-liberties activists, slammed that door shut.
David (Kagro X) Waldman, who unlike Rachel Maddow was at the meeting Isikoff wrote about, disagrees with that part of Isikoff’s reportage that Rachel and others have been waving about like a banner, especially to attack "LarsThorwald" and his diary:
There’s not much I’d feel compelled to add to what’s already out there, though one thing that jumps out at me is that I don’t know that I’d be able to agree with the assessment Isikoff passes on that the President spoke for the Attorney General and foreclosed the option of investigations, prosecutions or the like. The President ran the meeting, and it was his session. But I don’t know that I’d agree that it was his intention to announce the foreclosure of any such options. It may ultimately be his actual intention, but it didn’t appear to be his intention to declare it then and there — a subtle difference perhaps, but that subtlety was pretty much characteristic of most of what he had to say. He took his time and approached the issues and his answers to our questions carefully. The absence of any comment from the Attorney General appeared to me to be more of an acknowledgment that it was the President who wanted to direct the discussion, and the White House staff and administration officials present weren’t getting in the way of that.
Oh, and by the way, Jesselyn Radack agrees with Lars’ characterization of Obama’s speech, though not his take on OPR. Neither Kagro nor Jesselyn are Obamabotties, last I looked. But that probably won’t stop them from being called such.



3 Comments







I am amazed that anyone (older than, say, 14) believes that Holder won’t follow Obama’s lead.
PW, once again, thank you. I will grab onto any grain of optimism that I can.
Subtleties matter. Especially in the absence of recognition of subtlety, so common with the “media,” and we all know this President is a subtle-thinking man.
Lately I find myself getting bashed as an “Obamabottie”, which I have never been. But it seems that if one tries to point out subtleties such as this, one invites attack as not just an Obamaniac but as bashing those who criticize.
If the left keeps acting like this (which is of course the way much of the Old Left and the “New” Left of the sixties often acted) we will lose what we do have, and we will have defeated ourselves.
Ulp, sorry, sort of veered off on another path.
anyway, thanks.
I don’t trust Isikoff worth a damn. Do you, PW?