since you're here you must be some form of political junkie, but I'm going to remind you or rather, I'm going to let Larry Beinhart over at HuffPo do it. Regarding Habeas Corpus:
"Under Habeas Corpus, you have the right to say, I want to be brought into the court to determine if I am the right person charged, if there's an actual law prohibiting what I'm charged with, if the people who are holding me have the jurisdiction to do so, and I want that publicly known and I want the right to dispute all of that and the right to be tried too."
I was going to write my own version, but his is too succinct to mess with. Alberto Gonzalez actually told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Constitution didn't explicitly "grant" a right to Habeas Corpus only a prohibition against taking it away. I cannot think of a reasoning process that states something does not exist and still has its removal prohibited. Mr Beinhart reasons that the government is trying to set a precedent for ignoring Habeas Corpus so they can just "disappear" people (Padilla ?) or to set up a defense that AG A. Gonzales put forth the opinion and they just acted out of good faith.
I don't think it's that deep, they want to, so it's OK to do it. No, I don't believe the President is surrounded by simpletons, but having an intellect does not mean it is put to good use. Gonzalez is a lawyer, that particular job involves the making of arguments and rebutting the other side. This does not always involve reason or truth, but it does demand at least the appearance of such. The statement made to the Committee does not even make that attempt. What carpenter is going to buy it when I tell him that I'm not allowed to take away the nails he doesn't have? It is on its face stupidity, the kind of stupidity that is uttered by a man with no place to go from where he's stuck.
These people are going to do stupid things because they're stuck. They have no place to go from where they're stuck at. (Jail would be one, but I don't think they're striving for it) The question that we need to fear is just how stupidly they will act. A large percentage of this nation are stressed: a war they don't like, an economy that's not working for them, being an illness away from catastrophe, and a President that doesn't hear them. This really shrinks the wiggle room for BushCo and some more awareness of the closing grip of government intrusion and corporate favoritism may turn it into a vise, that's when stupid can really get going. Watching very carefully is not paranoia.
2 comments:
Gonzales represents the absolute worst in this administration: the sort of man who'd do anything to please his benefactors, even though he clearly knows better. You can make excuses for Rice--ivory tower professor with no management experience--and even Cheney--um...ok, maybe not for Cheney--but Gonzales is a lawyer who at least once was competent enough to win the respect of his peers and confirmation as A.G.
He knows better. And that makes him worse even than his ignorant boss.
That memo on torture & the "quaint" Geneva conventions will be something his heirs are disavowing for centuries.
"disavowing for centuries" - hopefully.
Rice's ignorance or disregard of history is abysmal and not due to any ivory tower - "say our lines"
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