O can't handle the truth!

Last Updated: 4:19 AM, March 6, 2010

Posted: 2:43 AM, March 6, 2010

Comments: 15

Charles Hurt - Inside Washington

WASHINGTON -- Throughout his political career, President Obama could not -- as Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men" might say -- handle the truth.

He had the luxury of going to elegant parties, where he gallantly smoked cigarettes and held forth with idle chatter about the incomprehensibly grotesque manner in which America was fighting this war on terror.

We should close that mean prison at Guantanamo, welcome ashore our enemies and treat them to our civilized system of civilian justice, a preening Obama told adoring audiences.

It was, as that great American politician Bill Clinton once memorably remarked, "a fairy tale."

Now that the weight of protecting this country falls to him, Obama is not so smug and enlightened anymore.

No longer do you hear him bleating about how reckless his predecessor was in pursuing relentless justice against enemy warriors captured on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Never again will you hear him say, as he did on June 18, 2008, "By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been an enormous failure."

And what happened to his smug insistence that "our system of justice is strong enough to deal with terrorists" and that we cannot "throw away 200 years of American jurisprudence" just to clean up a little terrorism?

As humbled by reality as Obama has been over his reversals, he should be applauded for realizing the error of his ways and finally embracing the uncomfortable truth.

Whether he can handle that truth remains to be seen.

churt@nypost.com

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rum and coke

03/09/2010 7:12 PM

Muslims kill five hundred Christians in Nigeria and Dictator Obama and elected official are all silent why?
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halo1

03/09/2010 3:36 PM

@sinclair
The short answer is because Bill Clinton was a lot more politically savvy than Obama. Obama still can't give up a very unpopular (read 70% against according to CNN) health care bill.

Bill Clinton got his butt handed to him in the 94 mid-terms. He tacked HARD RIGHT. Bill Clinton was not an ideologue. And that was a HUGE advantage.

Obama is an ideologue, when he losses the mid-terms he will moan and cry and complain about it, but it won't change his policies 1 wit.
Thus he is already and lame duck and will continue to be until he is ushered out of the WH in 12
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sinclair

03/09/2010 1:29 AM

Great op-ed in the UK Telegraph today titled "The End of the Road for Barack Obama?". A brief quote: "A thrashing of the Democrats in the mid-terms would not necessarily be the beginning of the end for Mr Obama: Bill Clinton was re-elected two years after the Republicans swept the House and the Senate in November 1994. But Mr Clinton was an operator in a way Mr Obama patently is not. His lack of experience, his dependence on rhetoric rather than action, his disconnection from the lives of many millions of Americans all handicap him heavily. It is not about whose advice he is taking: it is about him grasping what is wrong with America, and finding the will to put it right."
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halo1

03/08/2010 4:44 PM

@Slainte
Lol, Obama can't even admit he still smokes... i don't your political "denomination is" that's freakin funny.

All kidding aside, there isn't much in this article for fact or accuracy, but if something is yelling at you its not right, can you let the rest of us know??
Intellectual curiosity...call me crazy
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Slainte

03/08/2010 4:37 PM

This is hilarious. Since when has Hurt published an article that was based solely on the truth and was 100% accurate? Hint, never!
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robo

03/07/2010 9:11 PM

I WILL BE SUPRISED IF THE DEMS DONT DECIDE THAT THEY NEED EVERYONES SAVINGS AND 401 KS TO HELP THEM BALANCE THE BUDGET,SO DONT BE SUPRISED WHEN YOU TRY TO GET YOUR DOUGH , ITS GONE!!
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robo

03/07/2010 9:06 PM

OBAMA WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS AMERICAS UNDERTAKER, HE WILL BURY US IN DEBT!
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puck101

03/07/2010 3:56 AM

Twas ever thus . The Mouth that Roared awakened the morning after the swearing in , and found that life was not going to be one long ride aboard AF1 . And now , he's finding out that it's not a case of giving one hallow speech after another , because the addle-brained who voted for him , can't help him now. And the crooks and near-crooks whom he picked for his administration are being laid bare for all to see their incompetance. This is where the buck stops , Mr. Sotero . All the rhetoric won't stop one of our young who's combat boots you're not fit to lace, from being killed . Making bets on the Olympics and the Superbowl are fine , if you know when to stop beating a dead horse like your Health Plan , and decide that unemployment and the war should be your first concern. But you really don't deserve all the blame for what is happening. After all, people who voted for you should have realized you were and are nothing more than a graduated Ward Healer , whose record in the Senate should have stood out like a Red Flag . And the Liberal Press who refused and still refuses to report who and what you really are , can take their share of the blame as well. Not since the Pied Piper of Hamlin , have so many allowed themselves to be led to the cliffs to their doom with all the other Lemmiings. Maybe the disastor of your year in office will finally awaken America to the fact that they have to do their homework before entering the voting booth. By the way dept : Here's a little hint. Stop Blaming Bush for all your troubles, that crutch has lost it's appeal , if it ever had any in the first place.