The Sunshine Empire

I read the full text of President Obama’s speech on national security at the National Archives and it was brilliant politically and thorough and reasoned throughout. A direct strike back claim by claim from those who feel the country isn’t safe unless we torture. Obama notes that despite what push poll you note, both major parties nominated candidates that repudiated torture and Guantanamo. The country decided that we should move in the direction that we did with regards to closing Guantanamo, banning torture, and prosecuting those held at the Cuban military prison. I also loved when he countered the tired media point that some released from Guantanamo by pointing out that all those who did so were released by the Bush Administration.

The more amusing exercise was reading the tepid response to the speech on the conservative National Review Online. Some countered the President’s calling Guantanamo a mess, by which he was referring to the legal problems that arise from the operation, with claims that the place is tidy and they have sewing classes there. Jay Nordlinger faults the President for using an Austrian word during the speech, and Katheryn Jean-Lopez bizarrely diverts into a discussion of torture during Saddam Hussein’s regime. Yet other than that the site is relatively quiet regarding the speech.