The line between Republican rhetoric and parodies of Republican rhetoric seems to blur more and more all the time.
The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month’s Supreme Court ruling about detainees’ legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.
The high court ruling, which gave all detainees the right to petition federal judges for immediate release, has intensified discussions within the Bush administration about what to do with the roughly 270 detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“I’m sure that none of us want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said about al-Qaida’s former third in command.
Yes, unless we reject habeas corpus and embrace the notion of indefinite detention, KSM will move in next door to you. He’ll also probably get a job at your local school. Maybe become a soccer coach. I hear he’s been eyeing PTA membership.
Look, I know the White House and its allies want us to be afraid. If we’re scared, and our judgment is blurred, their prospects of political success increase considerably. If the president’s spokesperson can convince people that habeas will lead Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to roam Main Street freely, then maybe, the Bush gang hopes, the public will endorse their indefinite-detention policies.
But it’s clear that the White House’s demagoguery is so far from reality, it’s absurd.
I’m reminded of the recent “debate” over whether Osama bin Laden would be given habeas rights (the McCain campaign and conservatives found the idea outrageous).
But here’s the thing — who, exactly, is worried that we wouldn’t have enough evidence to hold bin Laden or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? As one of John Cole’s commenters put it, “I guess not a single person in the Justice Department has ever figured out how they’re going to try Osama bin Laden. I know it’s a complex case involving some difficult-to-pronounce syllables and maybe even some maps with even more difficult names, but are we really unprepared for a Habeas response regarding Osama Freakin’ bin Laden?”
The same, of course, applies to KSM. The chances of a federal court freeing him to “walk around our neighborhoods” is non-existent.
I’d add, by the way, that the White House also seems to be attacking the position articulated by John McCain in 2005:
“Now, I know that some of these guys [at Guantanamo] are terrible, terrible killers and the worst kind of scum of humanity. But, one, they deserve to have some adjudication of their cases. And there’s a fear that if you release them that they’ll go back and fight again against us. And that may have already happened. But balance that against what it’s doing to our reputation throughout the world and whether it’s enhancing recruiting for people to join al-Qaeda and other organizations and want to do bad things to the United States of America. I think, on balance, the argument has got to be — the weight of evidence has got to be that we’ve got to adjudicate these people’s cases, and that means that if it means releasing some of them, you’ll have to release them.
“Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial.”
“If it means releasing some of them, you’ll have to release them.” I still wonder, from time to time, what the McCain campaign and the White House would be saying right now if Barack Obama had said the same thing.