Profiles in Cowardice:President Bush finds enablers in both parties

[jbfam4]

Profiles in Cowardice
On prisoner abuse and detention, President Bush finds enablers in both parties.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093001027_pf.html

Sunday, October 1, 2006; B06



ONCE AGAIN, with a midterm election looming, President Bush stoked and won a major legislative confrontation over a complex national security question. Four years ago, it was the Iraq war resolution and reorganization of the government's homeland security functions. In both cases, hindsight suggests that haste and political pressure foreclosed the kind of nuanced debate that might have served the nation well. The same is likely to prove true of legislation passed last week on the treatment, detention and trial of enemy combatants.

But the artificial emergency Mr. Bush created has served his political purpose. His goal was to press opponents to cave to his will, against their better judgment, or to create an issue allowing his party to tar the opposition as soft on terrorism. In this case, thanks in part to the Democrats' weak-hearted abdication, he got both.

Mr. Bush must bear responsibility for his cynical pursuit of the wrong answer, but he could not have prevailed without a lot of help. Republicans in both chambers, forgetting that Congress is supposed to be an independent branch, snapped to attention when the president told them what to do. At least some of them obviously knew better. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) courageously championed an amendment to restore the judicial oversight that Mr. Bush opposed. When his amendment failed on a 51 to 48 vote, the senator said he would vote against the bill, calling it "patently unconstitutional on its face." Then he voted for it. The bill, he explained, had good points, and the courts "will clean it up."


Only a couple of weeks ago, the Senate was poised to move constructive legislation that would have given the administration the tools it needs but not the power to disappear people into secret prisons and interrogate them using techniques too shameful to name in public. Yet Mr. Bush's pressure tactics worked again. He has the lamentable legislation he wanted -- which will bring discredit onto this country in any number of ways -- and Republicans are busily blasting Democrats as terrorist-coddlers anyway.

[jbfam4]

1. dupe, sorry.....Mom was faster than I....

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Divisive is the only thing they do well.