Letters to the Editor
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Anonymous @ 7:14
Bingo.
I think if the Dems had wanted to make it perfectly clear to the American public that they were against the MCA but that they wern't the least bit soft on terrorism they could have--even in 2006. I think the reason they hid out is because they aren't really against the PA or the MCA. I believe we're delusional if we think a Dem President is going to overturn the PA and the MCA. This isn't a bad republican /good democrat issue. We have become a security state and the dems are just as big a part of it as anyone else.
This is the hard part, and it is the crucial part to understand. The Dems (and The Media) are not afraid of the Bush power grabs. Far too many of them agree with the overthrow of the Republic and the establishment of a Lawless Autocracy.
Until the Public understands that, nothing -- much -- is going to be restored or fixed.
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Relying on the Constitution
I suspect some of the Democrats who supported this bill or failed to oppose it vigorously did so under the assumption that the courts would strike down the habeas provision as unconstitutional anyway.
Clearly this is craven for legislators to trust the safety nets of the courts rather than doing what they know to be right.
Particularly when the Conservative movement has been eroding those nets to the maximum extent, because they understand something most Americans and Democrats still do not:
Sometimes, the actual text of the Constitution is unimportant, all that matters is what 5 Supreme Court Justices claim it says
Remember this quote:
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
- Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush
Do you think people with this mentality give a shit about what the Constitution actually says, or what a preponderance of evidence says the founders actually intended in any particular provision?
No, they only care in so much as they need to get 5 justices to agree it says what they want it to say. Whatever egregiously bad reasoning is given, if they want Article II to trump Habeas, Thomas, Alito and the other RWAs will be happy to agree with that "interpretation."
So, to add to Glenn's castigation of the Democrats, their far worse failure over the past 6 years was allowing Alito to reach the bench without a filibuster.
That would have been worth invoking the nuclear option. That was the fight that was worth wetting all the powder.
41 Democratic senators should have been in front of every camera talking about Alito's unamerican view of the Constituion and his extreme view of Presidential authority. After confirming Roberts, they had the credibility to oppose Alito on those grounds.
If they had done that, then they could rest reasonably assured that the Supremes would overturn the MCA. Now, I wouldn't bet on it. We're relying on Kennedy to be our 5th vote for sanity.
The MCA can be overturned this year, or in 2008 under a Democratic president. The 4 wingnuts on the Supreme court will be there well beyond that.
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DrEyeBall:
Even if habeus corpus is restored, wouldn't Bush just issue a signing statement that declared he did not have to comply with it for overriding "national security" issues? They are doing that with wiretaps and who knows what else already.
He might, but it would still be an improvement over the status quo where Congress has explicitly authorized him to ignore Habeas.
Bush did not "signing statement" away the timetables and benchmarks of the Iraq Supplemental - he vetoed. Clearly even he understands there are limits to how far he can push the Signing statement ploy.
So, let's put it on him to veto it or signing statement it, and at least give Congress a slightly cleaner conscience about the whole thing.
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Blaming the battered wife?
OK, a couple of things first...
Of course this "law" is a horrific repudiation of the core values of this country.
Certainly, Democrats are duty-bound to overturn this law to restore sanity (and respect for the constitution, the rights of citizens, the proper limits on the executive, etc.).
And the Democrats who helped pass this should be ashamed, clearly.
But why is the onus placed on Democrats ALONE in this article? From what I've been reading lately, and what I've seen of the GOP talking points bubbling through the mouths of so-called journalists, suddenly the worst abuses of the Bush administration are the fault of the Democrats. "They could cut off funding for the war entirely," goes one of the current GOP talking points, "so essentially, the Democrats are responsible for the war." This rationale has now bled into other issues: "If the Democrats are so concerned about deficit spending, why don't they just stop spending?" "If the Democrats think the Patriot Act is so horrible, why did about half of them vote for it?"
Totally ignoring, of course, the cult-like bloc voting of the GOP, their authoring the bill, their obsfucation of the details within the bills, signing statements, etc. This is like saying it's the battered alcoholic's wife's fault for not hiding the liquor well enough.
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Fear and false choices/press
I agree with zack-
The reason the MCA passed in the first place was the failure of the press. The fearmongering that the administration drummed up and the press echoed reverberated loudly in the halls of congress. Fear is one of the motivating cancers of a Versailles culture, much as it is in high school where conformity is so prized. I don't think it is enough to pin this on the democratic leadership trying to avoid looking weak before the election. They are adults, and they all all know by now that the most effective way to look weak is to be weak and completely avoid responsibility. I think there are, perhaps, a whole stack of motivations that include fear of the right wing echo chamber ('dems are weak on national security' meme, esp. near an election), fear of the terrorists (living within the echo chamber), and desire for conformity, acceptance (Versailles).
No doubt, inside the echo chamber, inside the Versailles culture, these votes looked reasonable. From outside the echo chamber, outside the Versailles culture, their actions look completely inexplicable, and totally reprehensible. But they won't know that unless *someone* from outside tells them. Loudly and repeatedly.
I will definitely send this on, Digg it, post it to friends, etc, but, as zack said, it's not the end of the story. This might help correct one of the errors brought on by non-existent journalistic standards, but there are many others still out there. The blogs are helping, but a lot of voters are still out there in the echo chamber.