My evidence that liberals are indeed up in arms about the erosion of Civil Liberties under Obama:

A list of 35 left-leaning organizations that have signed a petition against a civil liberties position of President Obama.

Your evidence that liberals support the erosions of Civil Liberties under Obama:

Matt Yglesias, a liberal, once said something that some people interpreted as an attempt to excuse Obama, even though he later clarified that that wasn’t his intent.

My evidence that Bush’s record on extreme abuses of civil liberties in the war on terrorism related cases was much worse than Obama’s:

Jose Padilla, U.S. citizen - detained, not read Miranda rights, not charged with any crime, tortured, not given representation, not allowed to defend himself in court, not allowed to confront accusers or view evidence against him, (see 4th amendment) held indefinitely until the Bush Adminstration was finally forced to cower to a pending Supreme Court decision.

Your evidence that Obama is worse than Bush:

Faisal Shahzad, U.S. Citizen - arrested, and not read his Miranda rights for several hours. And, horror of horrors, Obama is “not opposed to considering” modifying the law to allow such cases more often in the future.

Under Bush: Anti- war protests. Under Obama: nothing.

Why the difference? We should see atleast the same amount of intensity, if not more, under Obama than under Bush. Instead, we see significantly less (though not zero).

But I do think your argument would be quite a bit stronger if you could find a liberal to cite who actually acknowledges that he excuses Obama, rather than relying on one who (you believe) secretly excuses Obama, while claiming not to excuse him in public.

By the way, any luck finding a conservative who condemns the erosion of Miranda rights?

Or maybe you could just google for five minutes and come up with a list of twenty or so liberal organizations that condemned the erosion of civil liberties under Bush, but now support the same under Obama. That should be easy, right?

Furthermore, Yglesias initial comment surely does give the “excuse blame” impression and he did nothing to correct it. Only later when Greenwald explicitly called him out on it, did he post his update and even then he refused to address the accusation. Only to say that he was addressing something entirely different.

Lastly, as Greenwald points out, historically Yglesias has implied that he does in fact excuse Obama, Greenwald writes:

As to whether Matt intended to direct blame away from Obama for these policies and onto public opinion, I’ll take him at his word that this wasn’t his intent, though it is the effect of his argument (Obama is constrained by public opinion). My understanding of Matt’s view on that question is informed by prior, related arguments he made, such as his insistence that disappointed civil libertarians should look to Congress, not to Obama, for solutions.

I should also note that this fits perfectly well with the Matthew Yglesias I know. Though I am partisan, I generally shy away from reading purely partisan blogs like NRO, Weekly Standard and so forth. The blind ideological following annoys me. And so I focus more on independent liberal/conservative blogs, like Ezra Klein and Megan McArdle. Matthew Yglesias, on the other hand, rubes me as overly partisan. Closer to an NRO blogger than an independent blog. Sure, he shows independent streaks on some issues important to him, by and large on something that may make Obama or Democrats look bad vis a vis Republicans and is important to him, he generally gives Democrats far more benefit of the doubt. I may be wrong, but that is the impression I get from him (as opposed to say, Ezra Klein).

Here’s Yglesias trying to explain what he meant:

I’m not trying to excuse anything, or to exculpate anyone, or to shift blame anywhere, or to do any of the things Greenwald thinks I’m doing.

Here

Which is the exact opposite of what Greenwald accused him of saying.

Now, just to be clear, I can see how you and Greenwald would infer what you inferred from what Yglesias said. I’m sure it was an honest mistake - sin malas intenciones. But once he’s clarified it by explicitly stating that he was not trying to excuse Obama, why would you continue to claim that he was?

Regarding concrete examples of where Obama is getting worse than the Bush/Cheney administration, see Glenn Greenwald here. He even titles his post: New Target of rights erosions: U.S. Citizens.

Regarding Matthew Yglesias: I don’t see how I am misrepresenting his views. I linked to the same link you do. He specifically writes: “This is what I think: If public opinion were friendly to civil liberties, then public policy in the Obama era would be friendlier to civil liberties than it currently is”.

How is that different than what I paraphrased? I am being sincere here, I dont see it (as a former ESL student, I am very aware that I may be reading him wrong - by all means, correct me).

Btw, I am not the only one who took Matthew Yglesias comments that way. So did Glenn Greenwald. He wrote, after Yglesias posted his initial post, this: “In replying to her question, Matt Yglesias attempts to re-direct blame away from Obama by invoking the Public Opinion Excuse“.

Yglesias then posts an update and Greenwald, like myself, doesn’t see a real difference. Greenwald writes after the update:

Is that actually supposed to be different than the claim I attributed to him as his central argument (”[Matt’s] claim [is] that Presidents in general merely follow what public opinion dictates, and Obama is continuing the erosion of civil liberties because public opinion desires that . . . Matt’s argument assumes that Obama really wishes he could restore civil liberties but is simply constrained by public opinion“)? The point Matt now says he wanted to make and the point I attributed to him and then refuted seem synonymous to me.

Synonymous to me as well.

That and I am still not 100% sure where to draw the line. I am 100% against diluting the rights of citizens, or removing citizenship once granted. Im generally against waterboarding but only sometimes against renditions.

This is ridiculous.

You want to discuss “liberal hypocrisy” on Miranda rights, and yet you haven’t even gone to the trouble of forming an opinion on the subject.

What?!

It’s hard not to conclude that you really don’t care all that much about civil liberties - except when you can use it as a blunt political instrument. I’m sorry to be so frank, but that’s the impression you give. At least go to the trouble to form an opinion. Sheesh.