Krugman Explanations, Obama Expectations

Two notes from the New York Times:

In the Op-Ed section, Nobel laurate Paul Krugman accuses Republicans of "whining that almost defies belief."

Did Alberto Gonzales, the former attorney general, really say, “I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror”? Did Rush Limbaugh really suggest that the financial crisis was the result of a conspiracy, masterminded by that evil genius Chuck Schumer?

Yeesh, I hope not.

Krugman believes the Republican party's problems are far more entrenched than the missteps of a failed administration, and stretch back to their Southern strategy that developed in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, when the "G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash."

But what ails the party is more than a shift in demographics, argues Krugman. Instead it's their anti- government philosophy that doomed them to incompetence and lost the confidence of the American people.

Consequently, the Obama administration has an opportunity for bold action unmatched even in the Clinton years. Krugamn hopes they seize it.

What a convenient segue...

We highlighted Dick Cheney recently saying he anticipated the incoming Obama administration to embrace President Bush's expansion of executive power:

"Once they get here and they're faced with the same problems we deal with every day, then they will appreciate some of the things we've put in place..."

Well Cheney's theory will be put the test real soon. The Times reports that the Obama administration must submit a brief to the Supreme Court "on one of the most aggressive legal claims made by the Bush administration — that the president may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime."

The position of the new President, a former Constitutional law professor, will go along way toward defining the kind of change so many believed in.

At the heart of the case is "Ali al-Marri, a Qatari student who was arrested in Peoria, Ill., in December 2001. The Bush administration says Mr. Marri is a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda, and it is holding him without charges at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. He is the only person currently held as an enemy combatant on the mainland, but the legal principles established in his case are likely to affect the roughly 250 prisoners at Guantánamo."

Among the many cases on the docket, experts say a shift in course is most likely in Al- Marri's.

From the article:

Many legal experts say that all of the new administration’s options in Mr. Marri’s case are perilous. Intelligence officials say he is exceptionally dangerous, making deportation problematic.

Trying him on criminal charges could be difficult, too, in part because some of the evidence against him may have been obtained through torture and would not be admissible.

And staying the course in the Marri case would outrage civil libertarians.

“If they adopt the Bush administration position, or some version of it,” said Brandt Goldstein, a professor at New York Law School, “it is going to be a moment of profound disappointment for everyone in the legal community and Americans generally who believe that the Bush administration has tried to turn the presidency into a monarchy.”

"Cheney Out"- Quotes of the Day 12/16

"Once they get here and they're faced with the same problems we deal with every day, then they will appreciate some of the things we've put in place... We did not exceed our constitutional authority, as some have suggested. The President believes, I believe very deeply, in a strong executive, and I think that's essential in this day and age. And I think the Obama administration is not likely to cede that authority back to the Congress. I think they'll find that given a challenge they face, they'll need all the authority they can muster.

"Guantanamo has been very, very valuable. And I think they'll discover that trying to close it is a very hard proposition. They're unlawful combatants. And you if you're not going to have a place to locate them like Guantanamo, then you either have to bring them here to the continental United States and I don't know any member of Congress who's volunteering to have al Qaeda terrorists deposited in his district."

"We're on the downside of a recession that may be the worst since World War II. And if the automobile industry goes belly up now, there's a deep concern that that would be a major shock to the system."

- Vice President Dick Cheney on the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show. Cheney's support for an auto bailout has some produced some unlikely liberal allies.

His comments on Guantanamo and expansive view of executive power are decidedly less surprising.

Guantanamo

The NY Times runs a big story today on a lawyer who worked in the Guantanamo Bay detention center, and filed a scathing review on the procedure of what are called Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT). Basically, those are hearings to determine whether the person being held is an "unlawful combatant" or if he was taken (and jailed) by mistake.

The man at the center is Colonel David Abraham, a lifetime conservative Republican (he cried when Nixon resigned), who is a successful lawyer in the private sector, and enlisted in the Army Reserve to pay back his country for the opportunities given to his father, an immigrant and Holocaust survivor. Colonel Abraham is now speaking out against a lack of due process given to the detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

Here is one example of what he may have witnessed:

[Abraham] said he was prohibited from discussing the facts of cases. But public information, much of it obtained through lawsuits, includes examples of some of the points he made.

In a hearing on Oct. 26, 2004, a transcript shows, one detainee was told that another had identified him as having attended a terrorism training camp.

The detainee asked that his accuser be brought to testify. “We don’t know his name,” the senior officer on the hearing panel said.

Detainees being held have no access to lawyers, evidence, or opposing witnesses. For its part, the Pentagon points out that these CSRT's “afford greater protections for wartime detainees than any nation has ever provided.” However, the war against terror, as President Bush has repeatedly reminded, is a war that will last generations, so these individuals could easily be held for the rest of their lives.

The article is worth a read and you can find a link for it here.

As for my take, I harbor no illusions about terrorists. I know they want to kill me and my loved ones, and that they hate the things I hold most dear. I still remember 9/11 like yesterday, and don't want to see another one ever again. But there is real danger in our country losing its moral high ground, and no harm in giving these detainees regular trials in the states. Our country is pretty damn good at putting people in jail (we do it more than anyone else), and just wait til some of those maximum security types get their hands on al Qaeda.

Anyone in the know will tell you that information gathered through torture is bunk, so I don't see the value of holding these people in a government facility which has become a powerful symbol for American imperialism and injustice not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world. To be perfectly frank, in the war against terror, I think it hurts us more than anything.