BIG PICTURE: Why the ’08 Presidential Election Is Critical
By SusanUnPC on December 6, 2007 at 1:53 PM in Guantanamo, Homeland Security, Supreme Court, U.S. Constitution
FRIDAY UPDATES from Steve Clemons’ Washington Note:
(1) “The Horror. . .The Horror: Torture Up Close and Pondering the Blowback”
(2) “Alex Gibney: This Film is About the Corruption of the American Character”
EVENING UPDATES:
(1) “[T]he Senate-House Intelligence Conference voted today to make the Army Field Manual the standard for all detainee issues in interrogation and detention methods — or ‘the law of the land’ as my source told me. That means for the CIA and all branches of the national security, military, and intelligence establishment.” – Steve Clemons, The Washington Note
(2) Tomorrow, Steve Clemons will write about “the powerful and disturbing film Taxi to the Dark Side and the discussion we had this evening with director Alex Gibney, former FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan, former Abu Ghraib and Bergram* military intelligence interrogator Damian Corsetti, and former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson.” (I remember the story of the horrific, incalculably cruel torture and murder of the hapless, innocent Afghan taxi driver, but didn’t know a documentary has been filmed, with interviews of several military personnel.) The documentary’s creator also did Enron.
The author of Salon‘s review, “Beyond the Multiplex,” notes that the documentary’s creator hoped that showing how the “[Bush] administration has eviscerated the Constitution, and abandoned basic tenets of human rights and human dignity, [would provoke] some constructive rage. But right there on the sidewalk, my rage was not constructive. I wanted to get stinking drunk in some dead-end bar. …” U.S. premiere dates via IMDB: 11 January 2008 (New York City, New York) and 18 January 2008 (Los Angeles, California).
[*Susan's Note: I think Steve meant to type Bagram, the base in Afghanistan where the taxi driver was beaten for days before he died.]
ORIGINAL: The Supreme Court, and the number FIVE. Here are the ages of the current nine justices:
| John Roberts – 52 | Samuel Alito – 57 | Clarence Thomas – 59 |
| David Souter – 68 | Stephen Bryer – 69 | John Paul Stevens – 87 |
| Antonin Scalia – 71 | Anthony Kennedy – 71 | Ruth Bader Ginsburg – 74 |
What was it that reminded me that the next president will very likely appoint one, perhaps two, new justices? Last night, I watched BBC World News America’s and PBS Newshour‘s coverage of the court’s hearing of arguments yesterday on “whether terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have constitutional rights to challenge their detention in court.”
I listened to the commentary of Neal Katyal, a professor at Georgetown University Law School. Professor Katyai “successfully argued the 2006 Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which struck down the Bush administration’s military tribunals system.” About yesterday’s arguments, Prof. Katyai observed:
NEAL KATYAL, Professor, Georgetown University: Yes, I think that the Supreme Court took this case to answer the big meta-question, which is, does the Constitution give any rights to the people at Guantanamo Bay?
The Bush administration for years has said no. That’s, after all, why they put them there. They put them there because they thought that Guantanamo was a Constitution-free zone.
The Supreme Court has been pushing back at that incrementally for years, but I think today’s hearing, despite all the arcane, technical acronyms and so on, is about that basic, fundamental question: Can the government do whatever its wants to these 300 or so detainees at Guantanamo Bay, or does the Constitution protect them?
Here’s where Prof. Katyai mentioned the critical number FIVE:
[W]hat I understood the Supreme Court to basically be saying today through their questioning was that there are five justices who believe that big question — “Does the Constitution apply to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, at least its fundamental guarantees?” — the answer to that is yes.
And then the question becomes, what should the court do then? Should they then settle some of the detainees’ claims themselves, or should they send it back to the lower court for further proceedings?
But my sense is that’s really where the debate is going to lie and not where the Bush administration would like it to be, which is to say Guantanamo is a Constitution-free zone. …
We can quibble and bemoan the various records and traits of the presidential candidates.
But, come November 2008, please think of the number FIVE when you vote for president.
All of us who have followed the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the African embassy bombings know that the U.S. justice system — even with all of its protections for defendants and its guarantee that the accused may face their accusers — worked. It worked.
All of us know that there is no logical or security-related reason for extra-Constitutional treatment of detainees.
And all of us know that the mere existence of Guantanamo stains the reputation and standing of the United States around the world, and denies all that our Founding Fathers created and envisioned for this country.
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P.S. If you choose not to vote, or to vote for some third-party candidate, you may be handing the presidency to a candidate who promises to appoint another Scalia or Thomas. Such a candidate would be, say, Mitt Romney who today decried the “religion” of secularism. Here’s that table again:
| John Roberts – 52 | Samuel Alito – 57 | Clarence Thomas – 59 |
| David Souter – 68 | Stephen Bryer – 69 | John Paul Stevens – 87 |
| Antonin Scalia – 71 | Anthony Kennedy – 71 | Ruth Bader Ginsburg – 74 |
NOTE that the two justices that Pres. George W. Bush has appointed are both in their 50s. They’re going to be kickin’ around for probably another 20 to 30 years.
by Ronald Scott
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