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solarbirdGlenn Greenwald discusses the indefinite-detention-without-recourse trial balloon here, and the wretched journalistic practices at work in it. Then he moves on to Mr. Obama directly - and this is significantly trimmed down, go read the whole thing - noting that:
There has now emerged a very clear -- and very disturbing -- pattern whereby Obama is willing to use legal mechanisms and recognize the authority of other branches only if he's assured that he'll get the outcome he wants. If he can't get what he wants from those processes, he'll just assert Bush-like unilateral powers to bypass those processes and do what he wants anyway... where those processes impede Obama's will, he'll just bypass them and assert the unilateral power to do what he wants anyway...Bold as in the original.
That... is the precise pattern that's driving his suppression of torture photos. Two federal courts ordered the President to release the photos under the 40-year-old Freedom of Information Act. Not wanting to abide by that decision, the White House (using Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman) tried to pressure Congress to enact new legislation vesting the administration with the power to override FOIA. When House progressives blocked that bill, the White House assured Lieberman and Graham that Obama would simply use an Executive Order to decree the photos "classified" (when they are plainly nothing of the sort) and thus block their release anyway. ...
This was also the mentality that shaped Obama's "civil liberties" speech generally and his "prolonged detention" policy specifically. In that speech, Obama movingly assured us that some of the Guantanamo detainees will be tried in a real court -- i.e., only those the DOJ is certain ahead of time they can convict. For those about whom there's uncertainty, he's going to create new military commissions to make it easier to obtain convictions, and then try some of the detainees there -- i.e., only those they are certain ahead of time they can convict there. For the rest -- meaning those about whom Obama can't be certain he'll get the outcome he wants in a judicial proceeding or military commission -- he'll just keep them locked up anyway. In other words, he'll indulge the charade that people he wants to keep in a cage are entitled to some process (a real court or military commissions) only where he knows in advance he will get what he wants; where he doesn't know that, he'll bypass those pretty processes and assert the unilateral right to keep them imprisoned anyway.
A government that will give you a trial before imprisoning you only where it knows ahead of time it will win -- and, where it doesn't know that, will just imprison you without a trial -- isn't a government that believes in due process. It's one that believes in show trials....
If there's one principle that can be described as fundamental to the American founding, it's that the state -- and certainly the President -- do not have the power to order people imprisoned without charges. Thomas Jefferson said that trials by jury is "the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." Why is this painfully obvious proposition still necessary to defend after the November election?
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Date: 2009-06-27 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-27 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-27 04:55 pm (UTC)Besides, even if it wasn't, if he have to have a dictator, wouldn't you want Obama?
And keep in mind while you complain--McCain would have started nuclear war and Hillary would have been even worse, so you should be orgasmically grateful we have who we do--he's only violating the civil rights of people who don't deserve them anyway, and he's doing it for the greater good.
And can't you just feel the wave of positive energy he's brought? Even if nothing else changed, *that* would be a great accomplishment we should all be thankful for.
Get with the program.
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Date: 2009-06-27 06:52 pm (UTC)just to unsettle you more . . .
Date: 2009-06-27 07:56 pm (UTC)And I don't think anyone seriously said "orgasmically grateful". I don't think.
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Date: 2009-06-27 05:10 pm (UTC)The mis-handling of the financial crisis. The failure to address rampant unemployment in this country. The broken promises to the gay community.
This is not what I voted for.
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Date: 2009-06-27 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 02:53 am (UTC)I'm just consistently disappointed by American politics.
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Date: 2009-06-27 10:40 pm (UTC)There are quotes that come to mind, but I don't think I want to put them in a public forum.
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Date: 2009-06-27 11:41 pm (UTC)Thomas Jefferson then held Aaron Burr incommunicado without counsel for months while publicly proclaiming him guilty of treason. John Adams did much the same in regards to the Alien and Sedition Acts. We all know what Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and FDR did. To be remembered as a great president it seems one of the preconditions is to toss political opponents in a cell and throw away the key.
I'm not endorsing the practice, of course. I'm just saying it's wrong to pretend, as Greenwald does, that it's somehow unusual or unAmerican when it's neither. The President who behaves as we've been taught to expect them to behave will actually be one of the first.
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Date: 2009-06-28 01:55 am (UTC)a huge chunk of the votes for Obama came because he *wasn't* Bush, McCain was seen as BushIII, essentially - it would cost him NOTHING, politically, to have released those photos and to have *real* trials (or even just let them all fucking go) and has OBVIOUSLY *cost* him a LOT of political capital to NOT do the right thing (and i think he would have *gained* political capital by doing the right thing...)
and it MAKES NO SENSE TO ME!!! of all the stupid things Obama could do, this (the whole not-disbanding-Gitmo-in-a-timely-fashion, not-releasing-photos-that-incriminate-his-predessesor-who-is-also=the-face-of-his-political-rival) HAD to be #1. the man should have done all of the above FIRST THING, if only to cement his political power and position by proving (even if not persecuting) that the guy he replaced was a BIG HORRIBLE CRIMINAL and the guy he BEAT was IN LEAGUE WITH THE BIG HORRIBLE CRIMINAL!
WHY???
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Date: 2009-06-28 02:06 am (UTC)If he releases a detainee who kills Americans, he won't be reelected. He can frankly do without civil libertarians and gays, but he can't do without the twenty percent of the electorate who are swing voters and who expect the President to keep Americans from dying. And he wants to be reelected.
Personally, though, morality aside I think he's making a mistake. Those swing voters want Americans kept safe and civil liberties protected. That these things are mutually exclusive is not their concern. They expect the President to perform miracles and they won't vote for him again when he fails to do so, either way. He's already going to have to talk fast to persuade them so he might as well do the right thing while he's at it.
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Date: 2009-06-28 10:30 am (UTC)or, at least, that is how *I* would have played it - a Press Conference with each one, or each small group, with Pres announcing how incredibly fucked up the policies were and how stupid it is to live in a fear-led Nation where atrocities like this can occur, and while nothing can actually make up for horrible evil, we are doing X, Y and Z to do our best to come as close as humanly possible...
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Date: 2009-06-28 05:15 pm (UTC)Those are not the ones he's going to be holding indefinitely, I'm pretty sure.
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Date: 2009-06-29 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-28 01:59 am (UTC)Quoting from the comments there:
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Date: 2009-06-30 12:30 am (UTC)Intern: What does it mean Judge?
Napolitano: It means that the Obama administration isn't going to give up the powers that Bush gave to himself.