I’m actually a little more sympathetic to Conor Friersdorf than this (though I am assuredly not a fan). It’s hard for antiwar people to find a home within the two party system we have, and Obama is uniquely susceptible to criticism on foreign and national security issues because those policies are largely his alone. It’s difficult to know exactly how much blame to affix to Obama for certain domestic disappointments or successes because separating his role from that of Congress is tricky–we call it “Obamacare” but it’s equally as much “Reidcare” or “Pelosicare” (and quite possibly more accurate to use those labels, since Reid was almost LBJ-esque getting the bill through the Senate, and Pelosi’s role in passing it was no less impressive). On some domestic bills it’s easier than others, but it’s complicated in most domestic bills while aside from a few Congressional actions on Guantanamo and the loathsome NDAA, Obama owns just about everything his Administration has done in FP/national security areas. His record is pretty lousy to us civil libertarians, no doubt about it, and just about the only argument you can use is the one that he faces political constraints on his actions. Which is true, he does face constraints in this as well as every other area. But my basic take on this is that Obama’s foreign policy was designed to be popular with the public while avoiding the expenditure of any political capital that might be needed on domestic matters. And that it was. He could easily have thrown the civil libertarians a few bones here and there, struck a better balance, but one of the more persistent facts of first term Obama was a consistent refusal to take the morale of his base in pushing the course he thought was politically advantageous (to do so would undoubtedly have been “small” and “petty”), usually in hopes of striking some sort of rare bipartisan comity or settlement. Sometimes he was right about those choices but usually not, it cost him big, and I hope he’s learned his lesson. I think maybe he has.

But just because Obama has been bad on these issues doesn’t mean Romney wouldn’t be substantially worse:

Last December, Mr. Romney was asked about waterboarding at a town-hall meeting in Charleston. He replied that he would “do what is essential to protect the lives of the American people” but would not list “for our enemies around the world” what techniques the United States would use.

Mr. Romney also declared that he would “not authorize torture.” At the news conference afterward, a reporter pressed him to say whether he thought waterboarding was torture, and Mr. Romney replied, “I don’t.”

That comment appeared to align Mr. Romney with a practice by the executive branch, under President Bush, of defining torture narrowly and saying the harsh treatment it inflicted on detainees fell short of that level. By contrast, Mr. Obama has embraced a more expansive conception of the suffering that is off-limits.

“Waterboarding is torture,” Mr. Obama said in November. “It’s contrary to America’s traditions. It’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we operate. We don’t need it in order to prosecute the war on terrorism. And we did the right thing by ending that practice. If we want to lead around the world, part of our leadership is setting a good example.”

Ending torture was a big early step forward on civil liberties. At this point, it looks as though it might be the last big step forward too, at least in the first term. Given how much Democrats developed their case against Bush on security grounds in 2007/2008, that’s sad. But there is little ambiguity that Romney’s Dan Senor-led national security team wants to undo even that one solitary achievement (incidentally, just imagine reading this in the Times a year from now: “Romney National Security Adviser Dan Senor indicated that a second surge in the Iran conflict has not been ruled out.”). Plus, the article indicates they would probably push even further than Bush did in terms of torture. That’s bad. Doesn’t undo that pretty much every other decision Obama’s made in this particular area has been less than ideal, but losing the only one that’s any good is not a positive, and for a civil libertarian that might be what you’d call a VOTING ISSUE. While the Nader types hate the idea that they’re only helping Republicans with their votes (and make no mistake, despite the difference in ideology, that’s what Friersdorf is), it’s impossible to argue that they’re doing anything else short-term. Yeah, the common arguments about “changing the paradigm” and such might or might not happen in the long term, but to quote Keynes, in the long term we’ll all be dead. And given Mitt Romney’s excellent diplomacy skills, the long term might not be so far off…