In his speech at the National Archives, President Obama indulged his penchant for rebuking his predecessor even while adopting his counterterrorism policies.(The Week)(Barack Obama and George W. Bush)(Brief article)

In his speech at the National Archives, President Obama indulged his penchant for rebuking his predecessor even while adopting his counterterrorism policies. The president decried Bush's policies as an "ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable." But the basic principles of Bush administration's counterterrorism campaign were not designed on the fly: Detaining combatants has been a staple of warfare in every armed conflict America has fought. The strategy, furthermore, was extraordinarily effective (no domestic terror attacks in almost eight years), and it is entirely sustainable--indeed, Obama has sustained its major ...