Virtually from the first day Obama was inaugurated, right-wing polemicists have been alternatively accusing him of (a) radically reversing Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, thereby ensuring that we're all about to be slaughtered by the Terrorists (see Cheney); and (b) fully embracing the Right's Terrorism approach, thereby vindicating the Bush administration's policies and exposing civil liberties criticisms of Bush as hysterical, disingenuous and wrong (see Lowry).

I've reached the point where I think much of what Greenwald writes is too shrill, but this one is worth looking at - if for no other reason than this clear inconsistency he observes in the right's search for a position on Obama's civil liberties policies. It says a lot about Obama - its still not possible to read where he stands on these issues.

I think the "enemy combatant" announcement WAS largely symbolic, as was the closing of gitmo, but reason these things are symbolic is that the problem has already been solved. At the outset the primary issue (in my mind) was the assertion that the US could seize any citizen at any time and hold them forever without explaining why. That idea finally died in Boumediene v. Bush. Clearly, if Bosnians in Gitmo can file a Habeas petition, Americans can too, and Gitmo is not a legal blackhole. Two birds - one stone - no more problem.

I certainly DO think the US government OUGHT to be able to detain actual terrorists, but there needs to be a process that determines that this is actually what they are doing. That process now exists. What arguments about this are left mostly amount to squabling over details - and while perhaps those details are important they do not represent the kind of basic civil liberties debate that was occuring in this country a few years ago.

Bush's legal theories about detention have been discredited. The left should declare victory and move on. It is better in any case to win these victories in court than to have a President merely declare that he won't bother to do something anymore - as the next administration can reverse that posture again.

Obama's "enemy combatant" policy: following a familiar pattern - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com