Obama Not At Fault for Liberal Disillusionment With Him
FT columnist Gideon Rachmann explains liberal disillusionment with Obama:
Yet those who argue that the world was duped and Mr Obama is simply a fraud are making a mistake. Before disappearing into a lather of anger and disappointment, the president’s critics should consider some counter-arguments.
First, some of the decisions that Mr Obama has made that liberals hate are partly a result of some other decisions that they liked. Foreigners have largely applauded the Obama administration’s decision to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, if you are not going to go after your enemies on the ground, you may need other methods. Mr Obama’s controversial expansion of the drone strike programme is closely linked to his reluctance to deploy troops on the ground.
Similarly, Mr Obama has rightly received some credit for his decision to end torture of terrorist suspects, including such practices as waterboarding. But the need to gather information on terror threats remains – and the massive expansion of electronic monitoring is partly a response to that.
Read the entire thing.
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