Obama picks a guy whose types of policies he opposed:
“The Democrats just helped us to restore and make permanent 85 percent of the Bush tax cuts,” Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist said in response to the recently signed fiscal cliff deal. “That is progress…I’m happy.” Norquist, of course, would have been happier if President Obama had lost reelection and President Romney had made the Bush tax cuts permanent. But Obama won, not Romney. Given that election result, preserving 85 percent of Bush’s tax cut legacy does seem like quite an accomplishment.
The same might also be said about Obama’s pick to head the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan. When Obama was just a senator, he ran against almost all of President Bush’s national security policies including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), warrantless assassinations, and renditions. Now as president, Obama has embraced all of those policies. He recently signed yet another extension of FISA, a U.S. drone killed eight in Pakistan just this morning, and The Washington Post reported last week that “Renditions continue under Obama, despite due-process concerns.”
Is John Brennan, who supports and has been a key part in implementing all of these policies, who Romney would have picked to head the CIA? No. But he isn’t exactly a break from Bush’s security state either.
Additionally, how did Obama feel about the debt ceiling then, and now?
