An Obama Rope-A-Dope?

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22 Apr 2009 06:25 pm

A reader writes:

Reading the blog post you linked to by Jennifer Rubin in which she states "Which group — Cheney/Mukasey/Hayden or the Obama administration has more credibility now?" what jumped immediately to my mind was "Could this be another rope-a-dope by Obama?"
How would you try to bait a reluctant group into doing what they would not otherwise do? By tempting them to a fight they think they could win?

That is, by releasing partial statements by Blair that they could easily point to and say, like Rubin, "One wonders how the administration thought it was going to get away with this bit of deceit — revealing the interrogation techniques yet concealing their benefit from the American people." All the while knowing what Blair's full beliefs are, as you linked to with Greg Sargent: "Blair believes that some valuable info was collected via torture, but that torture is not essential to our security and has done far more harm than good." Finally the hypothetically "reluctant group" takes the bait, as Rubin does: "Let the truth hearings commence, if they must. Let it all come out. The first witness I would suggest: Admiral Blair." And then Obama lowers the boom by letting it all come to light.

Am I reading too much into this?

Probably. The Blair mix-up was probably just a mix-up. But the way in which Obama has been able to show that he doesn't want the division and rancor that restoring the rule of law requires, while deftly allowing the rule of law to move forward: well, that's classic Obama. And the bravado, vanity, Beltway posturing and lies of Dick Cheney? Well: remember what happened to Clinton and McCain and Palin.

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