Obama fails civil liberties test No. 67

Lemme see.

FISA immunity for telcos last summer? Check.

Loopholes in his executive orders on renditions, extraordinary or “ordinary,” last month? Check.

Actively supporting past uses of extraordinary rendition AND Bush’s “aggressive” idea of state secrets, ultimately hatched in the Bizarro-world mind of Uncle Fester Cheney? Check, as of yesterday afternoon

And, this isn't just a question of Obama's Justice Department not being “up to speed” yet.

In fact, DOJ lawyer Doug Letter said BushCo positions on the state secrets claim had been, actively reviewed and vetted.

Just to make sure she understood correctly, Circuit Judge Mary M. Schroeder, a Carter appointee, asked:

“The change in administration has no bearing?”

And, Letter repeated a No response.

Read Greenwald for MUCH more on this issue.

And, waiting for all the Obamiacs to speak about how “the good is NOT the enemy of the better," etc., all I hear right now is... crickets.

Let me quote you all just one sentence from Greenwald:

It will be extremely difficult for even the most loyal Obama followers to deny that this was an active and conscious decision on the part of the Obama DOJ to embrace one of the most extreme abuses of the Bush presidency.

And, that's why I’m hearing crickets right now. Once again, it’s Change He’s Trying to Force Us to Believe In.

But, that’s not all. Let me continue the Greenwald quote:

It isn’t merely that the Obama DOJ is invoking the privilege for this particular case, which contains allegations of torture that are as brutal and severe as any. That’s bad enough. But worse is that they’re invoking the most abusive parts of the Bush theory: namely, that the privilege can be used to block the adjudication of entire cases (rather than, say, justify the concealment of specific classified documents or other pieces of evidence), and, worse still, can be used to prevent judicial scrutiny even when the alleged government conduct is blatantly illegal and, as here, a war crime of the greatest seriousness.

They’re embracing a theory that literally places government officials beyond the rule of law. No minimally honest person who criticized the Bush administration for relying on this instrument can defend the Obama administration for doing so here.

Yep, that’s Change He’s Trying to Force Us to Believe In.