Balkinization

• 

• Liberals: Stop Making Excuses for Obama

  by Mary L. Dudziak

  Credit: Obama for America.Cross-posted from Balkanization.Sandy Levinson took Maureen Dowd to task for her column last week, “No Bully in the Pulpit,” which criticized President Obama for failing to pull the votes together to get the gun control bill through the Senate.  “Now it's Maureen Dowd who can't connect the dots,” he said.

• 

• When It Comes to Transparency, Obama's Channelling His Inner Nixon

  by Mary L. Dudziak

  Cross-posted from Balkinization.The Boston Globe reported that the president withheld a widely sought white paper “fearing it would only intensify congressional criticism, government sources say.”*This story appeared on April 4, 1973, and it referred to a white paper laying out the legal basis for President Richard Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia after U.S. troops were removed from Vietnam. Barack Obama obviously isn’t Richard Nixon, but his reluctance to disclose the legal basis for targeted killings attempts to do something that Nixon also attempted: to cloak decisions about war in government secrecy, undermining political checks on the use of military force.