Disconncet between Obama rhetoric and policy

If you managed to catch Barack Obama’s speech last Thursday, about Gitmo and counter-terrorism, you would have certainly felt bad for the guy. After all, the Bush administration left Obama with a handful of national security questions. Is waterboarding torture? What should we do about the captives being held at Guantanamo (Obama actually categorized them prisoners of war on Thursday)? Unfortunately for Obama, his case against the Bush's national security policy doesn’t ring true and could comes back to bite him. Prior to his election, Obama’s campaign was very liberal in nature in regards to national security issues. In trying to appeal to the Moveon.org crowd, Obama promised to give all prisoners held at Guantanamo a fair shake in American courts. As nice as this sounds, everyone does deserve their day in court, it becomes nearly impossible for the military to conduct its job should soldiers need to scour battlefields for evidence. In the face of startling statistics: one out of every seven prisoners released from Guantanamo resumes terrorist action; Obama, ever the pragmatist, changed his mind realizing that special trials need to be held, thus, affirming this aspect of the Bush Doctrine. That is one example.
This is one of many Bush-confirmative actions Obama has enacted. The tenets of Bush national security are still in place, so what’s Obama whining about? Bush left Obama with a blueprint on how to protect the country, one that Obama has embraced with only minor tweaks. Bush wanted to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but never figured out how to do so safely. Without these important details, Bush never would have got a bill through Congress, the same problem Obama faces now.
After 9/11, America was a scared state. Everyone and their mother was terrified of another, what many though eminent, attack. This is the all important backdrop for the torture debate. In my opinion, waterboarding is torture and I was encouraged when Obama outlawed it. That being said, the Bush administration with the aid of Congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi, decided to look the other way when waterboarding was temporarily legalized in the aftermath of 9/11. I wholeheartedly believe that the implementation of waterboarding was a response to 9/11 and the perceived threat that ran through the country. Many accuse Bush officials of using 9/11 to implement their global plans, tacitly saying that Bush officials were masochists and finally now had an excuse to torture people. Probably not. Certainly it plays very well with the public to defer blame back to the Bush administration, vindicating Obama’s decisions whatever they may be. The logic is that nothing is really Obama’s fault, that his choices were forced upon him, so should he make the wrong ones, hey, sorry I didn’t get us into this mess. The obvious problem is that no Presidency is an isolated four years, no one gets a clean slate. Tough decisions are part of the job description. Blaming Bush-while accepting many of his policies-is a dangerous political game and could come back to haunt him.