Republican lawmakers on Sunday criticized President Obama’s vision for winding down the war on terrorism, using talk show appearances to accuse him of misunderstanding the threat in a way that will embolden unfriendly nations.
“We show this lack of resolve, talking about the war being over,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What do you think the Iranians are thinking? At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine.”
In his first major foreign policy address of his second term, Mr. Obama said last week that it was time for the United States to narrow the scope of its long battle against terrorists and begin a transition away from a war footing.
In addition to renewing his call to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he said he would seek to limit his own war powers. He also issued new policy guidelines that would shift the responsibility for drone strikes to the military from the Central Intelligence Agency, and said there would be stricter standards for such attacks.
Mr. Graham, a strong supporter of the drone program, said he objected to changing the standards. Separately, he called for a special counsel to investigate both the Justice Department, which has come under scrutiny for seizing journalists’ phone records, and the Internal Revenue Service, which has acknowledged that it unfairly targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
Democrats, including Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, praised Mr. Obama for what they said was a necessary rebalancing of civil liberties and national security interests. “We have to balance our values,” Ms. Wasserman Schultz said Sunday on the ABC News program “This Week.”
But at least two lawmakers — the current and former chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas and Peter T. King of New York — complained specifically about the president’s remarks about Guantánamo Bay.
Mr. McCaul warned against closing the detention center, especially if it meant moving prisoners to the United States. “Name me one American city that would like to host these guys,” he said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”
More than half the remaining 166 detainees at Guantánamo Bay are Yemeni; of these, 56 have been cleared to go home. Mr. Obama has proposed repatriating detainees when he can, but will still face the thorny question of what to do several dozen men who cannot be prosecuted and who have been deemed to be too dangerous to release.
Mr. King, appearing with Ms. Wasserman Schultz on “This Week,” said the detention facility had been a success. “Many experts believe it did work,” he said, adding that he was “very concerned about sending detainees back to Yemen.” Noting that Mr. Obama had campaigned on a promise to close the prison, he said the president “could have done a lot more than he has done if he was serious about it rather than just moralizing.”
In calling for a special counsel, Mr. Graham said the Justice Department had begun to “criminalize journalism” and had engaged in “an overreach” in investigating leaks of classified national security information. He also complained of an “organized effort” within the I.R.S. to target political opponents of the president. “I think it comes from the top,” he said, although current and former I.R.S. officials have said Mr. Obama did not know of the targeting.
By Johnny Hanson, AP
By Danese Kenon, APJean Johannigman sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the beginning of the FreedomWorks rally for GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock on May 5 in Indianapolis.After Dewhurst failed to win more than 50% of the vote in the May primary, conservative activists were emboldened for the runoff election, knowing that such races traditionally have lower turnout and tend to favor the candidate whose supporters are most engaged. "We have an election cycle under our belts, and we're more attuned to how the game is played," Walker said.Cruz's youth — he's 41 — and biography — he's the son of a Cuban-American father who was imprisoned in Cuba before fleeing to Texas — have drawn comparisons to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a Tea Party-favored candidate in 2010."I think Ted Cruz is a superstar for the conservative movement," said Torin Archbold, 48, a car salesman from Austin.Republicans control the House of Representatives, but Democrats control the Senate 53-47, which has led activists to focus on Senate primaries as part of a two-part effort to get GOP control of the chamber and populate it with more conservative Republicans. The results have been mixed.In Indiana, Richard Mourdock handily defeated incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar by running to his right, but Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, waged a successful re-election campaign against a Tea Party-supported opponent. Senate GOP establishment candidates Heather Wilson of New Mexico and George Allen of Virginia likewise won primaries despite challenges from the right. In Nebraska, Tea Party allies were divided in the primary, opening up a surprise victory for Deb Fischer, who was not as closely identified with the Tea Party but secured an endorsement from Palin in the closing days of the race.FreedomWorks for America, a political organizing group associated with the Tea Party, has endorsed in upcoming primaries businessman John Brunner, who is in a three-way GOP primary to take on Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Rep. Jeff Flake in Arizona; and businessman Eric Hovde who is running against establishment favorite, former governor Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin.The endorsements underscore how the Tea Party movement remains loosely organized and often contradictory. For instance, although FreedomWorks has endorsed Brunner, Tea Party Express, another activist group, has endorsed Brunner's primary opponent, Sarah Steelman. In Arizona, Flake is facing wealthy businessman Wil Cardon, who is self-funded and challenging Flake's Tea Party credentials."It's a principled movement, but there's a lot of differences," Walker said. "Some work well with their Republican Party, others want nothing to do with their Republican Party. Some Tea Parties are all wrapped up in Ron Paul; some focus on things like constitutional teachings … but they are all much more engaged in the political process."DeMint, a lawmaker popular among Tea Party supporters, said he views the phrase "Tea Party" in more symbolic terms. "The Tea Party is kind of a visual representation of a lot of citizen activism."If Cruz wins Tuesday, he is all but guaranteed to win in November in Republican-leaning Texas. Mourdock is favored to win, as is Fischer, who is running for a Democratic-held seat and would provide a Republican pickup. The eventual Republican nominees in Missouri and Wisconsin will also likely be in competitive races for Democratic-held seats.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. 
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Christie, the Garden State's rough-talking governor, has been auditioning for the GOP's vice presidential slot with a tough guy act that seems to play well with the Republican base. His supporters see combativeness as a blue-collar virtue that Romney lacks — and his centrist leanings as a magnet for independent voters. Christie's backers delight when he talks of kicking the butts of Democratic lawmakers, calls a reporter who challenged him during a news conference an "idiot," and labels an openly gay legislator a "numbnuts" for comparing Christie to segregationist governors for his position on same-sex marriage.Agnew is the Maryland governor who catapulted himself onto the 1968 presidential ticket of Richard Nixon with tough talk of a different kind. He called a meeting of his state's moderate, black leaders following rioting that broke out in the wake of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and accused them of not doing enough to stop the violence.Memories of AgnewThese black leaders didn't act because they were "stung by insinuations (they) were Mr. Charlie's boy" and "by epithets like 'Uncle Tom'," Agnew said as television cameras rolled. That dressing down of Maryland's black leaders got Agnew national media attention and an invitation to be Nixon's running mate.Christie is a bully of another sort. He was caught on video recently menacingly berating a man who voiced some objection to his education policy while the governor strolled along a Seaside Heights, N.J., boardwalk with an ice cream cone in hand. "You're a real big shot, shooting your mouth off. Keep walking away. … Keep walking," Christie can be heard calling out to the man, whom the governor pursued briefly before being gently nudged into another direction by a member of his entourage. But to actually think Christie is a real tough guy is to believe The Sopranos was a real-life documentary, not an HBO fictional drama.Baiting for attentionLike James Gandolfini, the show's star, Christie is an actor. He baits interest in his potential candidacy with the kind of tough talk that only true bad guys, and people with a security detail, get away with. His reckless speech might play well in a state besmirched by the false imagery of The Sopranos and Jersey Shore, an MTV series that negatively stereotypes the very neighborhood where Christie had his boardwalk blowup. But it won't pass on the world stage where vice presidents play an increasingly important role. In a recent interview on the ABC News show Nightline, Christie said coyly that he'd answer the phone if Romney called to ask him to be his running mate.Let's hope that doesn't happen.What this nation needs from both sides of the political aisle are serious men and women who will take a constructive — not a chest-beating — approach to leadership and governing. We need politicians who can proffer their ideas and defend their ideological ground without resorting to brutish behavior. This nation needs elected officials who will answer reporters' questions, or — when they choose not to — will do so with the good reasoning and civility public trust demands.As with Agnew, Christie's selection as a vice presidential candidate would be great theater. But to put someone who delights in using fighting words so close to the Oval Office would place a blustering bully a heartbeat away from the presidency.DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. 
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