Obama’s Turn in Bush’s Bind

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[b]Obama's Turn in Bush's Bind[/b]

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[url="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/world/obamas-turn-in-bushs-bind-with-defense-policies.html?_r=0"]http://www.nytimes.c...icies.html?_r=0[/url]

[quote]By PETER BAKER
Published: February 9, 2013

WASHINGTON If President Obama tuned in to the past week’s bracing debate on Capitol Hill about terrorism, executive power, secrecy and due process, he might have recognized the arguments his critics were making: He once made some of them himself.

For four years, Mr. Obama has benefited at least in part from the reluctance of Mr. Bush's most virulent critics to criticize a Democratic president. Some liberals acknowledged in recent days that they were willing to accept policies they once would have deplored as long as they were in Mr. Obama's hands, not Mr. Bush's.

But some national security specialists said questions about the limits of executive[b] power to conduct war should not depend on the person in the Oval Office[/b].

"That's not how we make policy, said Douglas Ollivant, a former national security aide under Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama and now a fellow at the New America Foundation. We make policy assuming that people in power might abuse it. To do otherwise is foolish." [/quote]