Joshua is angry

By GottaLaff

I love the Joshua Blog. Joshua is a cool guy who is responsive to my Tweets on The Twitter Machine. I went over to his place, and I found a very angry Joshua. He has graciously invited me to copy and paste his entire post:

Now I'm really starting to get pissed off. What the hell is he thinking?! He refused to go after Bush officials for torture, he embraces Bush's executive power grab and protects the domestic spying program and it's telecom conspirators, blackmailed by the Senate GOPers with filibusters his appointees & threatened by the CIA with God only know what, he decides not to release the torture memos as planned and now this bullshit?!

From the NY Times:

Obama to Appeal Detainee Ruling

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight.

In a court filing, the Justice Department also asked District Judge John D. Bates not to proceed with the habeas-corpus cases of three detainees at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Judge Bates ruled last week that the three — each of whom says he was seized outside of Afghanistan — could challenge their detention in court.

Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network, which is representing the detainees, condemned the decision in a statement.

“Though he has made many promises regarding the need for our country to rejoin the world community of nations, by filing this appeal, President Obama has taken on the defense of one of the Bush administration’s unlawful policies founded on nothing more than the idea that might makes right,” she said.

read more

NOT OK.

Joshua has a point. I really don't want to get this upset with President Obama, he's really terrific in so many ways... but regarding these topics, I'm starting to simmer. I'm still in wait-and-see mode before I get to the same boiling point as Joshua, but right now, I don't like what I'm seeing while I wait.

Let's hope there's more to this than meets the eye, and that we will feel some sense of relief, not dread or vindication for our outrage.