Excerpt:
You won’t find it on the front pages, but the Obama administration has been walking back its position on many national-security questions. Attorney General Eric Holder has asserted that the U.S. has the right to hold suspected terrorists without charges. Solicitor General Elena Kagan has reiterated that position. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently told Congress that military commissions were “still very much on the table,” and rumor has it that the Obama administration will soon formally reverse itself on Guantánamo. The New York Times reported that “Officials who work on the Guantánamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies.” No kidding? Not only that, but not a single detainee was read his Miranda rights when he was taken into custody. Additionally, Congress is balking at letting Guantánamo’s inmates anywhere near their hometowns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein even put Alcatraz off limits. “It’s a national park and tourist attraction,” she explained.
But why should anyone be surprised about this? Expediency is the name of the game in modern politics, kind of like $3 trillion dollar deficits after campaigning on fiscal responsibility, then claiming to make good on campaign promises by demanding his cabinet to find cuts of $100 million. (For those of you are mathematically inclined, amounts to about 10 seconds-worth of government spending. But who's counting?)
LC
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