Now This is What I Call a Pivot
Forget all this talk about Obama “pivoting” on the economy. When it comes to the War on Terror, he's been spinning like a top.
Over the last couple of weeks, the Administration has been working hard to persuade the Supreme Court that Guantanamo Bay detainees should not have the same habeas corpus rights as other prisoners. As you may recall, in the 2008 Boumediene decision, the Supreme Court extended the right of habeas corpus (i.e., the right to challenge one’s detention) to Guantanamo prisoners. At the time, then-candidate Obama hailed the decision as bringing an end to a “legal black hole” created by George Bush, and his jack-booted storm troopers.
Now that he’s President, Obama has discovered that . . . well, it’s complicated. In a recent brief, the Obama DOJ bravely argues that: the Guantanamo situation is “unique,” okay? Secondly, when the Boumediene court referred to “habeas corpus” they didn’t mean traditional habeas corpus with evidentiary rules and other boring old safeguards. Instead, they created a special brand of “constitutional” habeas corpus, where the government can make up the rules as it goes along (the Supreme Court decision actually says no such thing -- I wish it had). Oh, and this comes after the administration has insisted that this whole habeas thing doesn’t apply at all the military prison at the Bagram base in Afghanistan.
Ah, hope and change!
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: Now This is What I Call a Pivot
If Obama was in Soviet Russia, he would be a moderate. That is the best way to understand him. He has some of that squishy, moderate personality--but from the point of view of a truly hardcore leftist culture.
With any luck he'll find a comfortable place in the center. I doubt it--his social circle still has emotional issues with the Clinton years--but who knows: perhaps he'll surprise us.