Sen. Boxer responded as best she could to a baited question from that idiot John King. If she had answered it in a way that would have made Digby happy, it would have provided CNN with the Obama-bashing headline that they were fishing for. (i.e. "Democratic Senator lashes out at Obama") She refused to take the bait and so there was no story.
What is it with you lately and this business about making liberal bloggers "happy"? First Greenwald and now Digby. I think your Rhetoric is getting ahead of your Rhythm!
Come on, Mike. You've got to know that this idea of "preventive detention" can't be allowed to become part of some centrist, mainstream position, which it will be unless Obama receives significant pushback on it. Please see hilzoy (yes, another "unhappy" leftie blogger!). We now have a situation in this country where torture is referred to as "enhanced interrogation" and at least half the country is perfectly okay with our government sanctioning it. We simply can't let that happen with "preventive detention" fergawdsakes! I wish there HAD been a "story" about Democratic senators standing up to Obama on this issue. Unfortunately, our Congressional Democrats are too busy undercutting him on any of the truly progressive legislation he's trying to get through, and acting like whipped puppies in the face of the Republican bully machine when it comes to not only continuing but extending Bush's horrendous war-on-terror policies.
You know that Obama, being the centrist that he is, is going to do some things we like and some things we don't. It's our duty to fight back when he makes really bad choices - which is what "preventive detention" most certainly is. He can't be just given a pass because we want to trust him to do the right thing because he's a Democrat. He won't always.
I think Hilzoy misunderstood what Obama said. Obama said “...there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States.”
And then Hilzoy writes: “If we don’t have enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we don’t have enough evidence to hold them. Period.”
Well, prosecuting is very different from charging. I think the administration would argue that they did have cause to “charge” the detainees with a crime, but now may not be able to successfully prosecute them because of the way that the Bushies mishandled their detention (torturing them and so forth).
My problem with Gitmo was not the initial detention, but the fact that they just left them there to rot for the next five years before doing any serious work towards a prosecution. And when they finally got around to it, well what do you know, about half turned out to be mistakes and/or were deemed non-threats and were released. It was the Bush administration’s attitude that they could detain people indefinitely without bothering to justify it that was so outrageous. Not that they could detain people who were initially deemed threatening to begin with.
What I see is that Obama has a big mess to clean up left over from the Bushies. We need to keep this all in perspective and realize that Obama has not “detained” anyone since taking office and is not likely to do so ever. However, the people left in his charge now that the Bushies have vacated represent the baddest of the baddies who nobody wants to deal with and he can’t just go out and say “no more preventative detentions” without sparking a political firestorm that would singe every Democrat in the next election.
Sorry if I’m coming off as a bit crotchety today. I’ve already been banished from one blog this morning - Alamo City Pundit. I was deemed a liberal troll for daring to question the validity of his post about Obama’s birth certificate. Whatever. I was excited at first when I found the guy’s blog, but quickly came to the realization that he is on the same level as TexasFred.
3: Put the following code whereever you want it in the section of your web page:Note: if you want to change the colors you'll need to edit the styles inside the
3 comments:
Sen. Boxer responded as best she could to a baited question from that idiot John King. If she had answered it in a way that would have made Digby happy, it would have provided CNN with the Obama-bashing headline that they were fishing for. (i.e. "Democratic Senator lashes out at Obama")
She refused to take the bait and so there was no story.
What is it with you lately and this business about making liberal bloggers "happy"? First Greenwald and now Digby. I think your Rhetoric is getting ahead of your Rhythm!
Come on, Mike. You've got to know that this idea of "preventive detention" can't be allowed to become part of some centrist, mainstream position, which it will be unless Obama receives significant pushback on it. Please see hilzoy (yes, another "unhappy" leftie blogger!). We now have a situation in this country where torture is referred to as "enhanced interrogation" and at least half the country is perfectly okay with our government sanctioning it. We simply can't let that happen with "preventive detention" fergawdsakes! I wish there HAD been a "story" about Democratic senators standing up to Obama on this issue. Unfortunately, our Congressional Democrats are too busy undercutting him on any of the truly progressive legislation he's trying to get through, and acting like whipped puppies in the face of the Republican bully machine when it comes to not only continuing but extending Bush's horrendous war-on-terror policies.
You know that Obama, being the centrist that he is, is going to do some things we like and some things we don't. It's our duty to fight back when he makes really bad choices - which is what "preventive detention" most certainly is. He can't be just given a pass because we want to trust him to do the right thing because he's a Democrat. He won't always.
I think Hilzoy misunderstood what Obama said.
Obama said “...there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States.”
And then Hilzoy writes: “If we don’t have enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we don’t have enough evidence to hold them. Period.”
Well, prosecuting is very different from charging. I think the administration would argue that they did have cause to “charge” the detainees with a crime, but now may not be able to successfully prosecute them because of the way that the Bushies mishandled their detention (torturing them and so forth).
My problem with Gitmo was not the initial detention, but the fact that they just left them there to rot for the next five years before doing any serious work towards a prosecution. And when they finally got around to it, well what do you know, about half turned out to be mistakes and/or were deemed non-threats and were released. It was the Bush administration’s attitude that they could detain people indefinitely without bothering to justify it that was so outrageous. Not that they could detain people who were initially deemed threatening to begin with.
What I see is that Obama has a big mess to clean up left over from the Bushies. We need to keep this all in perspective and realize that Obama has not “detained” anyone since taking office and is not likely to do so ever. However, the people left in his charge now that the Bushies have vacated represent the baddest of the baddies who nobody wants to deal with and he can’t just go out and say “no more preventative detentions” without sparking a political firestorm that would singe every Democrat in the next election.
Sorry if I’m coming off as a bit crotchety today. I’ve already been banished from one blog this morning - Alamo City Pundit. I was deemed a liberal troll for daring to question the validity of his post about Obama’s birth certificate. Whatever. I was excited at first when I found the guy’s blog, but quickly came to the realization that he is on the same level as TexasFred.
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