Alexander Ryking

Just weeks after the ACLU released its scathing indictment of the Obama Administration’s failures on civil liberties, law professor Jonathan Turley has become one of the most prominent individual civil libertarians in America to attack President Obama’s record as he seeks reelection. The list of transgressions he lists in a Los Angeles Times op-ed is familiar to regular readers of this space: “He continued warrantless surveillance and military tribunals that denied defendants basic rights,” Turley writes. “He asserted the right to kill U.S. citizens he views as terrorists. His administration has fought to block dozens of public-interest lawsuits challenging privacy violations and presidential abuses.”

Despite these transgressions, the Obama Administration has faced a lot less backlash from the left — notable exceptions include organizations like the ACLU and individuals like Glenn Greenwald — than did the Bush Administration, an unfortunate truth that causes Turley to offer a harsh assessment of the Democratic Party…

The combination of the record and the left’s reaction to it is what worries [Turley] most of all. “In time, the election of Barack Obama may stand as one of the single most devastating events in our history for civil liberties,” he writes.

On Aug. 16, Mr. Daley met with environmental, public-health and other groups to discuss the Environmental Protection Agency rule that would tighten air-quality standards. At one point he lamented that the issue couldn’t be worked out by consensus with industry, as the White House did with the auto industry on fuel-economy rules.

When the American Lung Association mentioned a poll showing public support for EPA standards, Mr. Daley appeared uninterested, according to one person in the room. “He literally cut the person off and said ‘I don’t give a [expletive] about the poll’,” this person said. A senior White House official said Mr. Daley wanted to hear arguments about the substance of the regulation and its impact, not political arguments, and he was uninterested in all polls on this topic.

The same day, Mr. Daley met with industry groups, who gave the White House a map showing counties that would be out of compliance with the Clean Air Act if the stricter standards were put in place. The map showed that the rule would affect areas in the politically important 2012 election states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio.

Dissatisfaction with President Obama is hurting Democrats’ chances in two House special elections that will take place on Tuesday.

In a Democratic-leaning New York City seat previously held by Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, some prominent local Democrats have endorsed Republican Bob Turner because of Obama’s handling of Israel, while Democrat David Weprin has sought distance from the president.

In a GOP-leaning Nevada district left vacant when Dean Heller was appointed to the Senate, Republicans are using Obama as a cudgel against Democratic candidate Kate Marshall, featuring him in all of their ads while mostly ignoring her.

Many Democratic strategists are privately blaming Obama for their party’s difficulties in both districts and worry that if his numbers don’t improve he could hurt their chances at retaking the House in 2012.

Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald on Thursday blasted President Barack Obama’s mantra that the nation should “look forward, not backward” regarding alleged crimes committed by the Bush administration.

“Imagine if, for example, we decided to announce tomorrow that we were no longer going to prosecute murder or rape or child abductions because we didn’t want to ‘keep looking backwards,’” he said on MSNBC’s The Last Word. “What do you think would happen? Obviously there would be a lot more people engaging in murder, rape, and child abduction.”

Greenwald added that American political culture had “decided our highest political officials are free to break the law without consequences” and Obama had continued the “evisceration of the rule of law for political elites.”

“So political elites like Dick Cheney know that they can commit crimes with total impunity, and that is why he goes around proudly boasting about the crimes he has committed.”

Via Greg Sargent, I learn that some people in the Obama campaign really, really dislike people like me, who complain when the president gives in to GOP blackmail.

Well, at least they’re paying attention.

I would say this: on one side you have the GOP, which responds to completely crazed Tea Party demands by doing all it can to assure the hard right that it’s on its side. On the other, you have the Democratic establishment or at least part thereof, which responds to complaints from its own base that it’s going too easy on the crazies by lashing out at the base, with a bit of bearded-professor bashing on the side.

Way to strengthen your bargaining position, guys.

Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not have much economic impact. These include free trade agreements and improved patent protections for inventors.

But others, including Gene Sperling, Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, say public anger over the debt ceiling debate has weakened Republicans and created an opening for bigger ideas like tax incentives for businesses that hire more workers, according to Congressional Democrats who share that view. Democrats are also pushing the White House to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

Even if the ideas cannot pass Congress, they say, the president would gain a campaign issue by pushing for them…

“Playing it safe is not going to cut it,” said [Christina Romer, former chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers], a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. “Not proposing anything bold and not trying to do something to definitively deal with our problems would mean that we’re going to have another year and a half like the last year and a half — and then it’s awfully hard to get re-elected.”

But there is little support for such an approach inside the administration…

As part of this appeal to centrist voters, the president intends to continue his push for a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction — a deal with Republicans to make even larger spending cuts, including to the social safety net, in exchange for some revenue increases — despite the strong opposition of Congressional Democrats who want to use the issue to draw contrasts with Republicans.