Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?
by JL Wall
Over (at?) @TAC, Kelley Vlahos has a post up after my own heart and rightly points out that the favored political strategy out there seems to be “repeating a lie enough to make it the truth.”
But why, exactly, did Congressional Dems “cave” so quickly on providing money to close Gitmo? Why did Harry Reid apparently forget to bring his ability to understand simple logic and simple questions to work this week? And why, after making it a (winning) campaign issue, did no one bother to challenge the incorrect characterization of certain detainees as “terrorists,” perhaps by quoting the statements of (Bush-appointed, Republican) Robert Gates? Is it because, to borrow Matt Zeitlin’s phrasing, “they think that their political fortunes will be improved by being bitch slapped by the GOP?”
I don’t think so — or that this has much at all to do with lack of backbone. To explain why, I’m going to need to bring in Victor Davis Hanson’s latest hyperbolic comparison — but one which actually snaps his long hitless streak:
“We are in a sort of medieval mode in which the suspect wine-bibbing, fornicating priest cleverly launches a general inquisition against the use of alcohol and sex to escape scrutiny. As a general rule of thumb, the more one hears or reads about a fanatically angry official or pundit on a moral crusade, the more likely they were involved in just the sort of behavior they are railing against. We saw this on the Republican side with a Larry Craig, Duke Cunningham, and Mark Foley, but the liberal establishment has taken it to new heights.”
Well, maybe the “new heights” part is giving Democrats too much credit. But the point remains. They are, in part, covering their own rears. But I suspect that the fact of the matter is that excessive Executive power looks a lot better when the Executive’s finally playing on your own team. Maybe Andrew Sullivan is right and this is all part of the grand strategy for the “long war against Cheneyism,” but it looks much more to me like the truth is simply coming to light: the aim was never to close Gitmo, but to pretend like it was the plan. Obama gets out scot-free on the idealist track, because he was faced down by those damned Congressional insiders. The valiant idealist falling only because the numbers were against him (as they always are - you’ve watched sports movies, right?). Did we really expect the institution to reform itself?
I know, I’m speculating. But I’ve been in the Chicago area long enough to know that one needs to read between the lines on this passage:
“The feeling was at this point we were defending the unknown,” Durbin said. “We were being asked to defend a plan that isn’t announced.”
Durbin said he expects to include the funding in the fiscal 2010 Defense appropriations bill, but the funding would not come ahead of the plan.
“I think Guantánamo should be closed,” Durbin said. “We have to wait for the president’s direction on what happens to the detainees.”
Durbin didn’t just serve in the same state delegation with Obama, and in the Senate with him. It’s not just that they’re on “professional” terms. Durbin has been a key player in Obama’s career since his Senate run: he takes credit, at least, for a key advisory role in the decision to run. He’s not a minor ally of this White House. I know that he’s also the Senate Whip, but that he’s out there criticizing Obama on this issue suggests, at least, that the Administration doesn’t mind all that much. And then there’s this tidbit from the press room:
“At the White House, the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said the administration expected that Congress would eventually release the money to close the camp”
In other words, they’ll close Gitmo at some point. In the long-term. And we all know where things are heading when language that points toward action at some indefinite point in the indefinite future gets used:
“Ames thought Dulles might be right proved right in the long term, and Boughton said ‘the long term’ was just a sort of feather pillow that was used to smother arguments.” (Marilynne Robinson, Home, p. 183)
I should say that I hope I’m wrong, of course; that the Obama Administration is not nearly as callow as I’m worrying they are. But the point, I suppose, is this (and you have it on the authority of someone who’s been a Cubs fan as long as he can remember): Put too much faith in hope, and you’ll just get hurt.
Filed under: politics
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JL, you have put your finger squarely on the the No 1 fear of the progressive left - that Obama pulled the wool over our eyes. DADT, Gitmo, AfPak, the Bank Bail Outs, the maintained Bush DOJ positions, no truth commission, enemy combatant tribunals; the list goes on. We do have a flawed stimulus bill and a flawed (as I understand it) credit card bill, a repudiation of torture but no accountability, and a reversal of policy on stem cell research and abstinence only funding. I hope it’s worth it all.
Jake
The Democratic cave-in is easy to explain. The Dems understand that the public does not want anyone detained in Gitmo living in the US under any circumstances.
Now the idea of declaring war on terror was a stupid idea. The stupidity was compounded by creating a legally indefensible new class of prisoners. It should have been obvious from the beginning that the American legal system would eventually manufacture rights and privileges for these people. Given that we are stumbling around in a clash of civilizations that may take centuries, the whole business of prisoners of war is a nonsense. Can we hold these characters for two hundred years?
As I said at another post, the best policy would be to take the parole of these buggers and turn them loose somewhere in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Then if they break their parole and attack, we have the option of killing them.
The public, TOM, is not on record as supporting your position with respect to Gitmo detainees on American soil. We have had at least two locales suggest they’d be happy to incarcerate terrorists for as long as the law sentences them.
Beyond that bit of truth is a question built into your statement - if we don’t want Gitmo detainees on American soil, is that because they were not ALL terrorists before they were illegally held at Gitmo, but may very well be now?
Jake
The public is never “On Record,” that’s why we’re a representative democracy. I don’t have a position. What I have is an observations and suggestions.
The first is that the Congressmen are convinced that the general public doesn’t want any ex-detainee neighbors. A few local officials in communities dependent on prison money are bucking that, for obvious reasons. That doesn’t change the Congressmen’s feel for want the general public wants.
The second is that in the beginning there were undoubtedly some ordinary jihadi foot soldiers among the detainees. Many have been repatriated. How the remaining detainees feel toward us can be imagined. We are assured that the remaining detainees are hard core enemies. Given the general bungling of the Bush administration, who knows?
My third observation is your use of your term, “as the law sentences them.” As they are considered “unlawful combatants,” in some sort of legal limbo, I have no idea what law really applies. I am sure that the application of American legal system to these men will result in at least some being released among the rest of us. I think the public sees and believes this and resents the failure of nerve on the part of their government.
The Bush administration spent a great deal of money and effort to focus public antipathy to our Islamic foes. It’s asking a great deal of that some public to now view them as ordinary legal defendants in court, just like all the petty American career criminals the government handles so well.
I’m serious about paroling them to fight or run another day. After all, many of them could have been sent to other countries but for ACLU complaints that the receiving governments might be mean to them. This situation is a Gordian knot of legal nonsense and the best solution is the simplest.