Editor explains why he thinks GOP is 'blackmailing Obama' David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster

Published: Tuesday April 7, 2009





Print This Email This According to Scott Horton at the Daily Beast, Republicans are trying to blackmail President Obama over his predecessor's 'darkest secrets.' By vowing to filibuster Obama's nominees if the torture memos are released, they pose "a serious threat to Obamas transparency," he wrote.



Monday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow spoke with Chris Hayes, Washington, D.C. editor for The Nation, about the Republican strategy.



"A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to 'go nuclear' over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public," wrote Horton. "The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration's abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration's darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward."



After rolling through a laundry list of Obama nominees who are in limbo, Maddow asked Hayes, "Is this a lot of high profile nominees being held up at once? It seems like a lot to me."



"You know, it's difficult to make these apples to apples comparisons because the political context changed so much from 1992 to say, 2000," Hayes replied. "But I think it's safe to say that very early in a president's term, particularly if it's a very popular president, there's a tremendous amount of resistance."



In 2000, he said, many progressive activists were upset with Democrats for allowing many Republican nominees.



"John Ashcroft is the one that comes to mind," he said. "I think we've seen an evolution in that process, such that we're seeing far more obstructionism now from the GOP."



This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Apr. 6, 2009.









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