So far, this is the story of his short history of presidency, saying one thing then doing another.
ABC's Jake Tapper:
President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge's order, and had changed his mind.
The president "believes their release would endanger our troops," a White House official says, adding that the president "believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court."
At the end of that meeting, the president directed Craig to object to the immediate release of the photos on those grounds. In an Oval Office meeting with Iraq Commander General Ray Odierno, the president told him of his decision to argue against the release of the photographs.
The move is a complete 180. In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge on April 23, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.
More from Fox News:
"Obama would be the last to excuse the actions depicted in these photos," the official said. "That is why the Department of Defense investigated these cases, and why individuals have been punished through prison sentences, discharges and a range of other punitive measures.
"But the president strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing U.S. forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan," reads a statement from the White House.
For once, his flop is a better decision than his flip, but it is good to see he is being consistent in his attempts to do one thing while saying another to cover his own ass.
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