Bush, McCain reach agreement on detainee provisions

September 21, 2006

Details are still non-existent, but it seems there’s been a break in the stalemate.

President Bush and Republican negotiators led by Sen. John McCain have reached an agreement on legislation covering tribunals for enemy combatant suspects, NBC News reported Thursday.

Details on the deal were not immediately available, but Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said it represented “very positive steps forward. Once everyone looks at it, we hope to come to an agreement.” He was meeting with McCain and Sens. Bill Frist and John Warner, according to NBC.

The compromise comes amid a stalemate that has divided the House and Senate on the treatment of detainees. The two sides remained at odds this week over how to adhere to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and — simultaneously — give the CIA wide leeway to conduct interrogations.

It was just a few days ago that Bush said he’d stop interrogating terrorist suspects altogether unless he got exactly what he wanted. Apparently, there was a bit more flexibility than he let on, but without more details, we won’t know just how much.

Will the House go for the compromise version? Will Dems? Will Specter? Stay tuned.

Right now I’m not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling about this.

You had to raise the specter of Specter, didn’t you?

  • “The hell with compromise. Rejection!”

    Maybe that should be the Dem’s official party platform for this November’s elections!

  • Oh, I’m sure there were no significant changes. McCain did his bit to look like the maverick; Bush did his bit to look like the compromiser. In the end, they’ll be legalizing torture and they’ll do it with a smile and a handshake while the whole world watched.

  • Maybe that should be the Dem’s official party platform for this November’s elections! -JRS Jr

    Hasn’t that pretty much been the way the GOP has ruled for the last six? The only time the word ‘compromise’ is ever heard is when one of those wild and crazy malcontents like McCain or Specter want to make a show out of something, but they always cave.

  • If this turns out to be another cave-in to Herr Bush and his tantrum of tyranny, I’d start telling every 17-year-old in this country—with all the sordid details as to how this megalomaniac of a president is overthrowing this nation’s duly-elected government and the Constitution—to “refrain from enlisting in the Armed Forces of the United States.” The only way to stop this SOB and his criminal minions is to turn off the flow of American blood to his malevolent altar of war. If he wants his mismanaged joke of a war so bad—let him be the one who reinstitutes the draft—rather than leaving it for the Dems to do.

    Herr Bush:
    Murderous. Draft-dodging. Coward.

  • Well, the world will be glad to know the U.S. has figured out a compromise that allows torture to continue unabated, but requires the rest of the world to respect the Geneva conventions, especially with regard to our troops. You’re doing “one heckofa job, there, McCain and Gang!”

  • From The Washington Post:

    One official said that under the agreement, the administration agreed to drop language that would have stated an existing ban on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment was enough to meet Geneva Convention obligations. Convention standards are much broader and include a prohibition on “outrages” against “personal dignity.”

    Hmmmm…

  • The two sides remained at odds this week over how to adhere to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and — simultaneously — give the CIA wide leeway to conduct interrogations torture.

  • I wonder whether Bush had his fingers crossed when he promised McCain there’d be no signing statement this time. I wonder if McCain checked.

  • Oh, come on.

    Bush will get what he wants from Republicans. That’s what he does. That’s what they do.

    The House will go along, because that’s what they do.

    Specter will fold like a gutless punk, because that’s what he does, and what he is.

    Democrats will… um, well, Harry Reid told Glenn Greenwald that there was no way the bill under consideration would get passed. So, Harry, what’s it gonna be? Gonna take a stand? Fomenting insurrection among the right only got us this far – looks like the caucus is going to have to actually exercise some political muscle, act like it’s got some balls, stand up for some goddamn principles.

    What’s it gonna be?

  • Our slumbering sleepwaking country is giving away its freedoms, its wealth, and basic human rights to the neo-con-artists. Where are our founding principles- which should always be non-negotiable? Compromising with our heritage is always a bad idea.

  • From Digby:

    Here’s how the optics look to me:

    McCain, the Republican rebel maverick, showed that Republicans are moral and look out for their troops.

    Bush, the Republican statesman and leader, showed that he is committed to protecting Americans but that he is willing to listen and compromise when people of good faith express reservations about tactics.

    The Democrats showed they are ciphers who don’t have the stones to even say a word when the most important moral issue confronting the government is being debated.

    As Paul Waldman said, after quoting the above, “I need a drink.” Several.

    Bush just won, we’re now legally torturing people and admitting that into evidence. There is no democratic, constitutional republic left.

    I am serious about “I need a drink.”

  • I think I am going with Josh’s take:

    A bit earlier this evening, in the comments section at TPMCafe, I said that from what I could tell the torture compromise is that we agreed not to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, only to continue violating them. The Post now has its editorial out. And they appear to have to come to something like the same conclusion. (Can’t wait to hear the Dean’s verdict.) The senate won’t formally reinterpret the Geneva Convention or explicitly sanction the president’s torture policies. But they’ll allow him to keep using them.

  • Eleanor Clift had it right on TMG this week: It doesn’t matter what law is passed. Bush will just issue a signing statement, consider that the law, then do whatever he wants because he knows Congress won’t challenge him.

  • Ohioan–

    CB was hoping against hope that McCain et al would do the right thing. Don’t crush CB for his idealism—which is what being an American is all about.

  • sknm – I will be the first to laud CB for the idealism, however we continue to fall into traps this way by not calling out these charades. Do you not agree that we lost and the Repubs won over the past week? As Craig Crawford put it:

    “The faux debate over torture between the White House and some Republican lawmakers serves both sides in their common goal to keep control of Congress. Not only does it sideline Democrats and allow the GOP to showcase independence from an unpopular president, but it also focuses national attention on the overall war against terror instead of the ever-worsening situation in Iraq.”

    We can’t afford to lull ourselves into an “ideal” world. Let’s do that after November!

  • It is time for people to wake up. Polls show what the pollsters wish them to show “at that moment”.
    Fact is we had terrorists, not just knock on our door on 9/11, but crashed through our door and killed our family.
    George Bush woke up, the rest of us simply turned over and went back to sleep.
    Wake up!
    Put it in smaller terms, if someone broke into YOUR house and killed YOUR family, would you demand law enforcement hunt them down or find em and “talk” to them? Would you expect those that aided them, hid them, fed them, clothed them and funded them to face justice also? Or would you “ask” them to stop helping?
    America is OUR house, each state is a room in that house….. The terrorists broke into our house and killed 3,000 people…
    George Bush woke up and did what I would hope any one of us would do… we started hunting, we gave them a choice, with us or against us in a war on terror.
    When are the rest of us going to wake up?
    I might not agree with every single decision made, but I back them because “I” am not the one that had to make that decision, Bush was.
    For the record, I am a democrat and have been all my life, I did not vote for George Bush, but if given the option today… I would vote for him in a heartbeat.
    He stuck by his guns, despite the “polls”, he stayed consistent depsite the “polls”, he showed backbone and spine, despite the “polls”.
    Wake up America and either stand behind one of the few people that is trying to keep us as safe as we can be, or shut up, sit down and stay the hell out of his way. Let him do the job that others are incapable or unwilling to do.
    Wake up, this is not a dream or nightmare, this IS a war and we did not start it, but we damn well better be the ones standing at the end of it.
    Wake up!

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