If Obama Cedes Ground to Cheney, We’ll All Pay a Heavy Price

clipped from www.commondreams.org 'Every government ­assumes deeds and ­misdeeds of the past," writes Hannah Arendt in Eichmann and the Holocaust. "It means hardly more, generally speaking, than that every generation, by virtue of being born into a historical continuum, is burdened by the sins of the fathers as it is blessed with the deeds of the ancestors." For Barack Obama this cuts both ways. Talented as he is, he looks much more so when compared with the man who preceded him he has inherited the scarred landscape of his predecessor's tenure. Bush's wars, banks, car companies, secret prisons and untried prisoners are now his Soaring ­rhetoric, however hopeful about the future, cannot erase the past, which has a habit of remaining with us The Obama administration's desire to concentrate on the future is understandable. But the past has a legacy and the present has consequences. By ceding the principle to Cheney now we will all pay for it later.

Excellent commentary by Gary Younge on why we need moral leadership.

Americans are sorely lacking in moral leadership.

For fear of being labeled unpatriotic, congress allowed an illegal war in Iraq.

For fear of being labeled unpatriotic congress is allowing torture, an affront to America’s core values, to go unpunished.

For fear of being labeled unpatriotic Americans are being forced to accept that patriotism is taking on a new face.

It has now become patriotic to follow our leadership into an immoral abyss.

It is now official: we rule out of fear rather than principle. If our founding fathers were alive today, this would kill them.

Do we have the choice to turn this situation around? Yes. Do we have what it takes to pull it off? I fear the answer is no, but I hold hope that someone will find the ability to make it happen.