From last night’s All Stars.
On the George Will dinner:
What is interesting is the fact that he would want to do this. And you see that since his election he has kind of reached out to people that may not be ideological allies, to Rick Warren, the pastor who will be at his inaugural, to John McCain, whom he has treated with a lot of dignity and respect, and to a bunch of right wing columnists last night, in part, because I think he is a guy who is intellectually curious and wants to exchange ideas, but also in part he wants to co-opt the vast right wing conspiracy.
And I’m here to tell you that, speaking for myself, he has succeeded. I am brainwashed entirely. I’m in the tank, and I am a believer of hope and change and, above all, audacity.
On Obama and war powers:
The revisionism has started. All the liberals who railed against the Bush and Cheney administration for usurping powers and augmenting the powers of the presidency and stretching it’s limits all of a sudden are discovering the virtues of a strong executive in wartime when a Democrat is about to enter the office of the presidency.
So it is hypocrisy squared, but I think, actually, it is a good thing, because we do need a strong executive. And I think in retrospect history is going to judge the Bush administration well on how it did.
It stretched the limits of law, the existing law, in order to enable the fighting of an enemy about whom we were almost blind after 9/11, successfully kept us safe for seven years, and instituted procedures, including interrogation and detentions, eavesdropping and other elements, which have kept us safe and which will be the tools which, if Obama is smart, he will not dispose of and will keep, because he’s going to need them in the war on terror.