Anchor Lisa Mullins gets reaction to President Obama's speech on Guantanamo from Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author Ron Suskind.
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI's THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI's THE WORLD is the program audio.
LISA MULLINS: Ron Suskind is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author. Suskind describes Mr. Obama's speech today as a repudiation of the ‘One Percent Doctrine.' That's the title of one of his books. The term one percent refers to a comment once made my former Vice President Dick Cheney.
RON SUSKIND: Cheney famously said if there's a one percent chance the WMDs could fall into the hands of terrorists we need to treat it as a certainty. And it's not about our analysis or in a way the rule of law, it's about our response. Obama takes direct issue with that and challenges it I think more forcefully than anyone has up to now. To say that the idea is rule of law. The thing to be preserved is rule of law. Without that we are not essentially the nation that we have, and the world has, come to champion and prize.
MULLINS: Well how did you hear Obama's words today as the president spoke of the Rule of Law in the constitution as being sufficient to ensure our safety against what he said is the single toughest we face – meaning terrorism.
SUSKIND: What Obama says today, and I think with real clarity, he says that the key is to focus on the flexibility but in a way the kind steeliness that Rule of Law engenders. That the laws can work here. That they are our best method to arrive at some assemblance certainly of justice. And Obama talks about that in the speech. What we're looking for here is for a kind of a progress, an evolution, where we can settle at a notion of justice when it comes to dealing with these individuals.
MULLINS: Some of what he said actually sounded very similar to some of what had been said by President Bush and I wonder if you heard some echoes of Bush-era arguments coming from President Obama today.
SUSKIND: Absolutely. You know in terms of the fact that we have individuals who are not falling within the general terminology, the kind of the framing and fabric of what we have used in the past to deal with issues of war; to deal with issues of combatance; to deal frankly with the state-to-state dance of force and diplomacy. These are non-state actors driven by an ideology who essentially are tempting to force us, which Obama does say today, force us to act in a way that is not consistent with our character. That's al-Qaida's plan. They can't obviously challenge a nation of the strength of the United States. Their goal is to turn us inward on our self and essentially have us devour our own liver if you will in terms of doing things that are not in our character and in fact thereby cashier what they know is the source of real power in the world which is moral energy and moral authority.
MULLINS: Where president Obama and the Bush administration seem to disagree is the area of transparency. How transparent can an American president be now in a post-9/11 world?
SUSKIND: Obama says today I can be only so transparent. I can only go so far in that realm. I think the difference though is that Obama is attempting, as he does today, to say everything I can tell you I will tell you and I'll tell you it immediately. I'll also tell you the reasons that underlie actions even if I can't offer you or splay out all the key evidence that's classified that drives those actions. Cheney clearly went in a different direction and if there is another attack in the future up ahead, Cheney is hoping to be able to claim causation in terms of a future attack. That is I think what underlies the frustration you heard in Obama's speech today and some of the steely language. You know Obama's ready for this fight. He says to Cheney I'm commander in chief. Essentially go fishing. Get lost. This is my show now.
MULLINS: Ron Suskind is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and the author of the book ‘The One Percent Doctrine.' Also most recently the book ‘The Way of the World.' Ron thank you very much.
transcript