Word: maying
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...Less than three weeks later, Obama pulled a U-turn. When Craig walked into the Oval Office on Friday, May 8, for a hastily called meeting, the normally placid Obama was visibly unhappy. "I don't like my options," the President said. Craig told the President his lawyers had concluded there was no alternative to releasing the photos. Obama sent Craig scrambling for a new way out. Three days later, Craig had found a loophole: instead of releasing the photos, Obama would buy time by fighting their release all the way to the Supreme Court...
...Interviews with two dozen current and former officials show that Obama's public decision to reverse himself and fight the release of the photographs signaled a behind-the-scenes turning point in his young presidency. Beginning in the first two weeks of May, Obama took harder lines on government secrecy, on the fate of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and on the prosecution of terrorists worldwide. The President was moving away from some promises he had made during the campaign and toward more moderate positions, some favored by George W. Bush. At the same time, he quietly shifted responsibility...
...Hayden pressed on: "Lemme get this right. There are no conditions of threat this nation might face that would prompt you to interrupt the sleep cycle of somebody who may have lifesaving information...
...Obama quietly killed the Gitmo plan in the second week of May; Craig never got a chance to argue the case to the President. "It was a political decision, to put it bluntly," says an aide. The stumble had long-term consequences: later that month, Congress blocked the release of Guantánamo detainees in the U.S. and restricted their transfer there for trial. The White House realized it had to start over on a signature issue. (See pictures of prison life inside Baghdad's Camp Cropper...
...explain these moves, Obama turned to a device he often uses to transcend political divisions: a major speech. Delivered at the National Archives on May 21, Obama's address struck a new equilibrium between security and civil liberties - a stark contrast to the security-at-any-cost approach advocated by Cheney, but also a departure from his direction at the start of 2009. The President pointed out that he had ended "enhanced interrogation" and closed the CIA's secret prisons. But he also pledged to "use all elements of our power to defeat" al-Qaeda...