President-elect Barack Obama came to The Post editorial board yesterday with two messages sketchy on details yet reassuring in approach: A commitment to fiscal discipline, and a determination not to be bound by liberal, or indeed any, orthodoxy.
On the first, Obama announced his plans for a “fiscal responsibility summit” next month, even before his first budget is unveiled.
Asked about whether the legal system is adequate for detaining and trying alleged terrorists, Obama said that he is undecided about whether some kind of special national security courts might be needed. “I am confident that we can set up a structure,” he said. “I haven’t prejudged whether it’s through a traditional federal court system, is it through military courts-martial, is it through some variant. I am confident that core principles of due process, habeas corpus and so forth can be put in place that insures we are prosecuting bad guys much more rapidly than we have up until now, that we are true to the Geneva Conventions and international norms, that we are true to our Constitution and that (we) keep the American people safe.”
Discussing the impression that his personnel selections have indicated a centrist bent, Obama argued against such pigeonholing. “What we’re trying to eliminate is thinking through that lens,” he said, citing the example of his choice for education secretary, Arne Duncan. “Is he left or right? I don’t know. He’s smart, and he agrees with my general assessment of where the school systems are. That’s why I hired him, not because of what one wing of the education establishment or another wing thought of him.”
Obama’s indications of ideological flexibility are rather abstract at this point; he has not yet been called on to make the kind of difficult choices about which he speaks so eloquently. But his transition has sounded all the right themes, and, if yesterday’s session is any guide, his presidency promises to begin on the same hopeful, pragmatic note.
