Obama sides with principle over Rahm on detainees

[Enrique]

from the Obama hate site FDL...

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2010/03/02/lindsey-grahamanuel-the-military-commissions-the-beginnings-of-administration-pushback/

Building off Marcy’s post on the Washington Post’s veneration of Rahm Emanuel, it now appears that Eric Holder had David Axelrod as an ally for what the Post calls an argument “rooted in principle” for trying KSM in criminal court. Rahm Emanuel had… Lindsey Graham. Obama went with Holder, Axelrod and principle. For the moment.

Recall: Graham is telling whatever reporter he can find that Emanuel understands that the price of closing Guantanamo Bay is his vote, and the price of his vote is to try KSM through a military commission and maybe the creation of a totally new national-security court. Well, almost any reporter: I’ve been trying to get Graham’s office to explain to me precisely why it’s unacceptable to try KSM in civilian court. Is he afraid KSM will walk? Civilian courts have successfully prosecuted 300-odd people in terrorism cases. Is he afraid classified evidence will be released? Judges have a lot of leeway to prevent that. Does he think KSM shouldn’t have a lawyer? He’d have one in a military commission. I don’t know the answer, because Graham’s office isn’t accepting my interview request, and he’s not explaining — just asserting that KSM can’t be tried in civilian court, because.

I sympathize with the effort to bring Graham along. Really! It’s a worthy goal to try to enlist bipartisan support for a stable architecture for handling terrorism detainees, so that the next GOP administration doesn’t start from scratch and we do this every time power changes hands — a circumstance that will leave the rest of the world wondering about American justice. But notice what Graham doesn’t do. After Obama says in May that he’s going to leave the military-commissions option open — and even works to pass the Military Commissions Act of 2009, while civil libertarians ground their teeth in their sleep — and even embraces the un-American option of indefinite detention without charge, Graham doesn’t say, “Hey, look at how far the administration has gone to accommodate conservative criticisms. This is something we should get on board with, and so maybe let’s let them get on with closing Guantanamo.” Instead, he makes extra demands, all to get Obama to bless a conservative version of quasi-law. There’s bipartisanship and then there’s capitulation. For evidence of which is at work here, notice the explosion of hysterical GOP criticism of Obama post-Abdulmutallab, when civilian measures for interrogation work but still Obama is endangering America and Mitch McConnell ret-cons the Moussaoui trial into a “disaster.”

Now the attacks have gotten so out-of-hand that the administration has little choice but to fight back. So you see John Brennan saying that military commissions are an inferior tool compared to civilian courts. Joe Biden says the same thing on the chat shows. Eric Holder even launches a whole DOJ webpage about the legal system as a counterterrorism instrument. For that matter, on the substance, David Kris and Jeh Johnson can’t even propose a rigorous standard for when to use the courts and when to use the commissions — but say that if they don’t make the commissions more like civilian trials, the courts are going to upend the whole apple cart.

(...)

[Kdillard]

1. Good k and r.

[slipslidingaway]

2. "from the Obama hate site FDL..." Nice :( n/t

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. This is "change we can believe in", right?

I mean, shouldn't progressives, indeed all of us, be glad that President Obama is trying to return us to a "pre-9/11" mindset or, hell, even a "post-9/11 mindset" that doesn't see military commissions as the only acceptable means for prosecuting terror suspects. The Republicans are just using KSM to score cheap "political points" and whip up public fear about President Obama doing what Bush/Cheney did on several terrorism-related cases during their (mis-)administration. Unfortunately, nobody in the all-important "liberal media" is demanding that they explain exactly why it was o.k. for Bush/Cheney to try terror suspects like Richard Reid, Jose Padila (although only after they were forced to by the courts), et. al but not Obama. Of course, we all know the answer to THAT (IOKIYAR) but it would be nice for somebody to really browbeat them for an explanation that coherently distinguishes when we need to use a civilian trial and when we need to use a military commission. There really isn't any justification for using military commissions other than for prosecuting combatants captured on the battlefield in a legally declared war. Anybody else should be prosecuted in civilian courts IMHO- like the common criminals they are.

[wyldwolf]

4. according to the WAPO article, Obama reached out to Graham,

FDL: Building off Marcy’s post on the Washington Post’s veneration of Rahm Emanuel, it now appears that Eric Holder had David Axelrod as an ally for what the Post calls an argument “rooted in principle” for trying KSM in criminal court. Rahm Emanuel had… Lindsey Graham.

WAPO: In December 2008, Obama, Emanuel and Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) met in Obama's transition headquarters in Chicago to discuss detainee policy. According to Graham, Obama turned to him at one point and said, " 'I'm going to need your help closing Guantanamo Bay. . . . I want you and Rahm to start talking.'

:shrug: at FDL.

[Enrique]

5. kicking in light of recent news

turns out to be even an even more interesting article now...



(...)

Now the attacks have gotten so out-of-hand that the administration has little choice but to fight back. So you see John Brennan saying that military commissions are an inferior tool compared to civilian courts. Joe Biden says the same thing on the chat shows. Eric Holder even launches a whole DOJ webpage about the legal system as a counterterrorism instrument. For that matter, on the substance, David Kris and Jeh Johnson can’t even propose a rigorous standard for when to use the courts and when to use the commissions — but say that if they don’t make the commissions more like civilian trials, the courts are going to upend the whole apple cart.

What they can’t say — because of the original decision to embrace the commissions — is that the commissions are totally inappropriate. There’s a non-zero chance that ultimately GOP obstructionism, combined with Democratic spinelessness ahead of an election, could compel Obama to back down on a civilian KSM trial, especially with Emanuel saying that the key to the whole thing is Lindsey Graham. How could they attack the legitimacy of what could ultimately be the venue for a huge terrorism trial? So the message is diluted and the GOP inexplicably gets an advantage here. Several unforced errors for the price of a single South Carolina senator! And does anyone really believe that if Lindsey Graham says to get on board with a huge Obama priority, the Senate GOP will line up, no matter how compromise-y Obama gets?

[ima_sinnic]

6. "from the Obama hate site FDL"

yes, just as those who criticized GWB "hated" him, so anyone who voices a criticism or challenges the status quo "hates" Obama. Don't you get tired of being mindless? Do you have anything actually intelligent to say, or just knee-jerk phrases like "hates Obama"? Because of posters like you, I only occasionally drift through here now, checking out the usual idiotic bullshit like that. But of course that must make you happy. The goal of the DLC message disciplinarians is to purge the board of all dissent, to make it into a bunch of mindless parrots, approving the party line drivel. Well, have at it. I won't disturb your beautiful mind any longer with my disgust at being sold out to insurance companies, republicans, and every other thing anti-progressive and status-quo grubbing greed-head predatory capitalist. enjoy your day.

[Enrique]

7. it was irony

Aimed at exactly what you're talking about. FDL gets shit as hating Obama, and here's a column saying he chose the principled route.

[ima_sinnic]

8. all right, my bad, I aplogize

I actually tried to delete my post, but it's been too long since I posted.
I didn't get enough sleep last night and am in a piss-poor mood