Keeping America Safe: President Obama v. Candidate Obama

Keeping America Safe: President Obama v. Candidate Obama

Keeping America Safe: President Obama v. Candidate Obama

Jon Stewart points out the hypocrisy of withholding the torture photos and the firing openly gay Arabic translator Lt. Dan Choi.

Facebook
Twitter
Email
Flipboard
Pocket

 

After vowing on his first day in office that "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," Obama has put his pledge into question again by deciding not to release the infamous detainee abuse photos. President Obama has also gone back on his campaign promise to repeal the military’s "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" policy, which has gotten another Arabic translator kicked out of the service. Stewart wonders how protecting torturers and punishing gay soldiers makes America safer from terrorists: "So it was okay to waterboard a guy over eighty times but God forbid the guy who could understand what that prick was saying has a boyfriend?"

Corbin Hiar

Check out more great Nation videos on our YouTube channel.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x