Bullshit posturing, obscurantist equivocation -- it's morning in Obamerica!

It's become more than a minor annoyance to hear Donkeybot Obamormons slavering and drooling over the "secret strategy" that supposedly will sandbag those evil Elephants on the subject of the Yoo-Addington-Gonzales-Ashcroft torture memos and their pseudo-legal analysis. The average Obamormon thinks that his/her Angel Obamoroni is a brilliant strategist. The reasons I've heard?

He's a smart man.

He's a brilliant lawyer.

He's a master strategist.

What's the proof of any of these things? Oh sure, I know what is the "proof."

If I'm to use "common knowledge" among Americans, I'd have to conclude that The Obamessiah's education at our Empire's utterly finest Ivy League schools makes him a genius at whatever he does. That's the effect of an Ivy education, according to American folklore -- it takes a humble average soul, and turns that humble soul into the God-Power of (as Tom Wolfe called them) our Empire's Masters of the Universe.

Whenever I hear such trumpeting of Ivy Glory, I am reminded of the days I spent as a litigator in a NYC-area law firm. It was a very good firm, with excellent lawyers. About 60 of them. Not a huge firm, but definitely not small. They came from all different backgrounds, and a variety of colleges and law schools. Curiously, the ones with an Ivy education were no more brilliant, wise, strategic or clever than the ones who went to supposedly 2d tier schools. I found the same when my litigation adversaries were from white-shoe NYC firms. The sad realization: despite American folklore's massive worship of the Ivy League, it's really no different from State School Hell. It's just more pretentious.

So I'm not eager to grasp (much less accept) the implorings of those who insist the Angel Obamoroni is here to deliver divine judgment via some mysterious, waiting-in-the-wings deus ex machina. At least not when those implorings are premised on the supposed superhuman advantages disbursed by the Ivy League academies.

I'm a bit baffled by some of the legal strategy-oriented comments I hear or read from non-lawyers. Apparently they're just accepting the standard Donkeybot Obamormon shilling by some "expert" or other. Who's offering such shilling? Apparently Elizabeth de la Vega, the woman attorney who wrote a book that basically was a legal brief arguing for Bush's impeachment. Ms de la Vega has an axe to grind -- selling copies of her non-selling book -- which depends heavily on the idea that the real culprits in America's current clusterfuck are Those Evil Elephants. De la Vega suggests that the Angel Obamoroni is hiding a secret "gotcha!" strategy that will ultimately lay all culpability on the Bush/Cheney Admin.

Check this fantasy pitch offered in a comment at Chris Floyd's blog:

And whatever else you have to say about Barack Obama, he is a smart lawyer. It’s obvious he has parsed his words with extreme care. Although I can not see into Obama’s heart or character any more clearly than you, it’s my belief that he is actually more of a “radical” than you give him credit for. Indeed, I think it's possible he’s even more radical than you give yourself credit for. He may actually want to make inroads into the system, not just righteously rail against it from the outskirts.

Do you see the distraction and triangulation at work here? It's hard for me to know whether this comment was written by a true Obama team member, or just someone who has bought the Obama message without question. Mr Genius suggests that the real Angel Obamoroni is a true radical, a wolf in sheep's clothing. And he's that radical mainly because Mr Genius is sure that Chris Floyd's not as radical as the Angel Obamoroni is.

Huh?

Come again?

Obama is radical because Mr Genius thinks Chris Floyd is not radical?

How does that work, exactly?

And what does it have to do with the Angel Obamoroni giving full legal cover to the Bush/Cheney Admin's legal arguments related to torture?

What legal strategy starts with formally adopting your supposed adversary's position, and filing that adoption as your formal legal position via briefs written by your own Justice Department -- briefs in which you heartedly support that supposed adversary's position?

From that start, how does this brilliant "sandbag" strategy play out? Who can tell me? I was a pretty good litigation strategist in my day. I don't see how this supposed "sandbag" is going to play out. Is some other Internet Genius going to explain it to me? I doubt it.

Looking to a legal "expert" on this subject of the Angel Obamoroni singing the praises of Yahweh Dubya's torture position... well, it doesn't seem to be accurate. This isn't a legal argument strategy playing out. It's a political move -- and one that has only a single reason behind it. That reason? I'll let two good journalists tell you.

Here's Chris Floyd:

...the comparison of this case to the Bush Adminstration's perversion of the Justice Department does not hold water. Here, we are not talking about "politicizing" the justice system in any way; we are dealing with glaring, credible evidence of actual crimes that have been committed. In any normal, non-political circumstance, the law should be allowed to take its course against any and all perpetrators of these crimes. The Bush Administration was manufacturing cases where the alleged crimes were either completely non-existent or worked up from speciously applied technicalities by prosecutors and judges with clear partisan bias. The only "politicization" involved in prosecuting the torture case has come from Obama's specific offers of protection from prosecution for the CIA and the Bush White House.

To sum up: Obama released memos that he was legally required to release, while at the same time making very public claims that the CIA perpetrators of the torture would not be prosecuted, and quieter, "deep background" claims to favored press outlets that the officials who ordered the torture would not be prosecuted either. You find this a "radical" course of action that will "make inroads into the system." I'm afraid I disagree.

And here's Dennis Perrin:

The day that senior Bush officials, like Bush and Cheney themselves, take the perp walk in chains and orange jumpsuits is the day I publically register as a Democrat, don an Obama t-shirt, and burn a stack of "Savage Mules." Of course, for justice to be seriously administered, many leading Dems would also have to be charged, not only for supporting or silently tolerating torture and rendition, but for beating the war drums over Iraq, the broken, bloody stage where much of this official "concern" originated with the Abu Ghraib photo sessions. This would naturally include the Vice President and Secretary of State, whose firing, arrest, and prosecution would show just how impartial American justice truly is, a shining counterexample to those lawless states that allow piracy to go unpunished.

But none of this is gonna happen. In American politics, talking and posturing about "justice" is about as good as it gets. Oh, maybe some lower echelon cog will be sacrificed to keep the charade going, but the real crime lords will avoid any jail time or serious censure as Obama urges us to "get past" this "aberration" to our noble system of governance. His slow motion pose about not impeding criminal investigations is simply more imperial pantomime -- chum bait for the rubes.

No matter what he does or doesn't do, Obama will not face a liberal mutiny, and he knows it. While a few Democrats like Glenn Greenwald are making critical noises against Obama's obfuscation, it remains a minority view. The liberal overreaction to the pitiful teabag demonstrations showed their true, loyal colors. That many of the teabaggers hold fantastic concepts of Obama helps his lib admirers, as it diverts attention away from his actual positions, giving Dem mouthpieces like Janeane Garofalo room to rant about idiot crackers who dare protest a black president, something you won't see Garofalo and kindred ideologues ever do, not with the energy and anger they protested Bush.

There are rare moments when the American Fix is so blatant, so obvious, that speaking against it merely reinforces its power and reach. This is one of those moments. Admire it, fellow peasants. You have nothing to lose but your CHANGE.

I could write a further lawyer-ish analysis that would mirror the thoughts offered by Messrs Floyd and Perrin, but I think I'll just rest my case here. Any of you readers having a strategy analysis that runs contrary, please offer it up in a comment. Maybe you can change my mind, maybe you can make me see the secret sandbag strategy of the Angel Obamoroni, in a manner that is more defensible than that which has been offered to date by the flock of Obamormons who are merely fawning over the Voice of God as spoken through the Angel Obamoroni.