Split Screens: Administration Caves on Terror Trials

I check in with Bag for a lot of things, but not necessarily nuance. It’s sad to see sites like this missing the opportunity to focus on the very important context in favor of a story with an easy good guy/bad guy framing and an obviously dumb, but popular, premise – a “weak” administration and dithering President.

Any political journalist knows the amount of budgetary roadblocks and FUD levers that Congress can pull when its own self interest is at stake. They blocked the closing of Guantanamo (remember Obama announcing the effort to close it almost immediately?), and they were largely responsible for abdicating the rule of law and forcing the administration’s hand on these terror trials by whipping up all kinds of nightmare scenarios about housing terrorists in the middle of our cities. They, and the American people. This post gets it right:

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/4/5/123749/3323

I’m still flabbergasted at the self-righteous glee that the Left has in savaging it’s own, especially after 2.5 years of some of the most substantial progressive legislation we’ve had in a long time on a wide variety of fronts in the face of unprecedented opposition, and real measurable accomplishments. But, like I said, I’ve finally begun to acquiesce to the reality that nuance isn’t something I’m going to get from most political coverage on either side of the ideological spectrum.