I’ll be casting my Democratic primary ballot for Barack Obama. I can only hope that enough Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina do the same.
I’ll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information, and restore the balance we’ve lost between the necessarily secret and the necessity of openness in a democratic society by creating a new National Declassification Center. We’ll protect sources and methods, but we won’t use sources and methods as pretexts to hide the truth. Our history doesn’t belong to Washington, it belongs to America.
I’ll use the intelligence that I do receive to make good policy — I won’t manipulate it to sell a bad policy. We don’t need any more officials who tell the President what they want to hear. I will make the Director of National Intelligence an official with a fixed term, like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve — not someone who can be fired by the President. We need consistency and integrity at the top of our intelligence agencies. We don’t need politics. My test won’t be loyalty — it will be the truth.
And I’ll turn the page on the imperial presidency that treats national security as a partisan issue — not an American issue. I will call for a standing, bipartisan Consultative Group of congressional leaders on national security. I will meet with this Consultative Group every month, and consult with them before taking major military action. The buck will stop with me. But these discussions have to take place on a bipartisan basis, and support for these decisions will be stronger if they draw on bipartisan counsel. We’re not going to secure this country unless we turn the page on the conventional thinking that says politics is just about beating the other side.
It’s time to unite America, because we are at an urgent and pivotal moment.
Via Anderson Republican’s diary on Daily Kos.