Press wrestles With SCOTUS Takedown Of War President

by DemFromCT

It's a fascinating thing to observe the press struggle with issues that half the country got past years ago. The deference to the President (not Bush, the office) remains astoundingly wide. Even when the POTUS screws up, the press won't say so... at least not right away, and not directly. But now that an equally revered institutation, asnd a conservative court at that, has handed down a major ruling on the limits of presidential power, the press is struugling to catch up. A few examples follow. From KRT:

At its heart, legal experts said, the ruling rebuffed Bush's contention that the president has special powers during wartime to disregard acts of Congress and international treaties.

"I think the court's ruling is a rejection of the administration's post 9/11 legal centerpiece claim, which is the president has inherent authority in all kinds of things in the name of crisis," said Neal Katyal, the lead attorney who argued the case on behalf of detainee and plaintiff Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

"One of the potential implications is that the `inherent authority' argument pushed by the executive branch may be in retreat," agreed Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers on Friday.

Can you imagine the press suggesting the 'inherent authority' was anything but CW a week ago?, Why everyone knws that all the WH has to do is yell WoT™ and Dems flee the city quaking in their boots about being labeled soft, losers, or 'cut-and-runners'.

Republicans yesterday looked to wrest a political victory from a legal defeat in the Supreme Court, serving notice to Democrats that they must back President Bush on how to try suspects at Guantanamo Bay or risk being branded as weak on terrorism.

In striking down the military commissions Bush sought for trials of suspected members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, the high court Thursday invited Congress to establish new rules and put the issue prominently before the public four months before the midterm elections. As the White House and lawmakers weighed next steps, House GOP leaders signaled they are ready to use this week's turn of events as a political weapon.

Why, just ask Chris Matthews (he'll verify with Kate O'Byrne). Or listen to Rush (he speaks for America).

Never mind that polling does not support Bush's approach to governing. Never mind Bush's continued <40% in job ratings (35% in the most recent from TIME). Never mind that generic ballots everywhere favor Dems by wide margins. Never mind that Dems are in strong position on recommending a change to the approach in Iraq.

The truth is simple. Republicans and Bush want a divided and polarized America. It's the only way they think they can win elections. It's the only way they have in the past. Their failure of ideas (see Iraq) and failure of governance (see Katrina) can not be defended. So let's move to the Big Smear. Let' s make everyone Max Baucus. Forget about the fact that that's what Bin Laden wants.

Today's conclusion: bin Laden's message was clearly designed to assist the President's reelection.

At the five o'clock meeting, once various reports on latest threats were delivered, John McLaughlin opened the issue with the consensus view: "Bin Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President."

Around the table, there were nods....Jami Miscik talked about how bin Laden — being challenged by Zarqawi's rise — clearly understood how his primacy as al Qaeda's leader was supported by the continuation of his eye-to-eye struggle with Bush. "Certainly," she offered, "he would want Bush to keep doing what he's doing for a few more years."

But an ocean of hard truths before them — such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin Laden would want Bush reelected — remained untouched....On that score, any number of NSC principals could tell you something so dizzying that not even they will touch it: that Bush's ratings [in the U.S.] track with bin Laden's rating in the Arab world.

It's also what Bush wants. But it's not what Americans want. And only a victory in November by the opposition party will convince the media of that.

Comments

[jwp]

You are correct, of course.

I wonder whether the way forward will be through our politicians. Does not seem like a good bet.

I think we need some movies. 7 Days in May updated.

People need to understand the issues in a "real" sense. They just don't respond to rhetoric in the same way. We need a visceral sense of what gwb is all about.

[Katie Jensen]

The thing that bothers me the most is that when the Gop presents this to the American people, they will use sweeping generalizations about how the dems are preventing the President from taking care of those awful terrorists. They will effectively make the case that the dems are protecting the bad guys. And it will work because the dems are not currently coming up with a strategy that is anything but defensive. They need to get their story out there first. They need to get out on the circuit this weekend and present a rebuttal to this claim and they need to invoke our forefathers...the same arguments that Martin Luther King made to rebut this crap.

Why in the name of all that matters won't the dems stand up with righteousness. They keep trying to find strategies that fit the argument instead of taking a completely opposite stance.

The President is undermining our constitution in order to fight terrorism and while he does it he is stealing our country blind of it's resources. All the democrats need to do is spend a few million this weekend and the following week during the fourth of July to turn this around but they don't act fast enough. Ugh!

Thanks for all you do on this site...but I truly wish you all could gather all the dems and give them a public relations lecture...cause otherwise the republicans have a point that the less educated, more emotionally minded, fear based americans will gladly buy.

[DemFromCT]

Katie Jensen, the question is always how many will buy it. The elections the Rs have won since 2000 have been razor close by historical standards, at least in presidential years. The 32% of core Bush voters will not be swayed. It always was and always will be about the moderate swing voter. Bush is losing those... it's the uncomfortable R voter or indie that makes Bush go from 30<—>40%. Those patterns may soon be locked one way or the other.

it's no longer an auto-win for Rs to yell WoT™, Dems are weak. I'm not certain it resonates the way it used to.

[Kagro X]

Maybe fewer people would buy it if Dems were out there saying, "We were right and you were wrong, all along, just like we said, and now the Supreme Court has proven it for us."

But they won't be. They'll be lining up to authorize tribunals, and pretending the ruling has ended torture forever, so they don't really have to address that.

[Sara]

Kagro and others, the reason Bush and Rumsfeld cannot tolerate the notion of tribunals with all the normal rights of a defendant in a court marshall -- is because much of the evidence against these defendants is compromised or corrupted because they were coerced or tortured. Thus the necessity of Bush's very own Kangaroo courts.

It is precisely for this reason that Democrats need to be demanding hearings in the next month (before legislating) to draft the specific authorities and rules for such trials. There were lots of things in that ruling -- it is a mind twister, but a couple points of emphasis. Normal Courts Marshall can be appealed to Federal Appeals courts, and then to the Supreme Court. Bush's Commissions could only be appealed through the executive branch -- Rumsfeld and then Bush. The Descision shot this down nicely. Second, Bush got his fanny wacked on another matter -- the constitution gives only to congress the power to establish "inferior Courts" -- inferior to the supreme court. Bush was outside his perogatives in not asking congress to establish a court for this purpose, and he got shot down on this. But now, and more important is the question of whether our dysfunctional congress can do normal business -- hearings and then debate and passage in both houses, conference committee and final passage -- and do it in a way that makes US Lawmaking respectable again. I think Dem's have to demand that leadership set up the process and perhaps cancel the August Recess so as to do it intelligently and properly. Perhaps the first question that needs to be asked of all committee members -- have you read the court opinion??? Both Armed Services and Judiciary Committees will have to do hearings. It looks like Senator Warner is planning this -- and Spector apparently is drafting his own bill. What Dem's need to be saying is that we have to create a totally constitutional process -- and if they say that loud and hard enough, I think it minimizes the Republican efforts to distort and smear. Smart is saying, lets get all our Law Deans and Professors scheduled in for serious hearings and start the process. Smart is demanding that hearings include the military lawyers who were cut out of the "addington" process. Smart is if Colin Powell opposed the commissions, force him to speak in public about why.

Now I have another suggestion -- lets have a Federal Criminal Trial of Khalid Shiekh Mohammed. We have him in Custody, and we have a nice indictment against him issued by a New York Grand Jury led by Mary Jo White and Patrick Fitzgerald -- issued during the Clinton Administration, and it deals with the E. African Bombing cases and the Bojinka Plot. That evidence was all available before 911 (and we had tried others successfully using that evidence) so none of it is corrupted by whatever torture he has endured. The cases can be death penalty -- but the others got life without parole. (Bojinka killed one Japanese plane passenger, the E. African Bombings killed hundreds.) Democrats ought to loudly demand that at least this case go forward and that KSM be brought to New York to stand trial. There may be a few others among the captured who also were under indictment prior to 911 and their capture. Try them too. The Democrats -- and the public ought to be very loud about this. I realize that Bush has a real prejudice about giving Clinton's DOJ any credit for doing anything right, but Such prejudice ought not block readily available justice.

[Katie Jensen]

You all are correct of course but I have great fear that those razor close elections really weren't. I fear that the republicans have organized election fraud so well by using every available variable, from the number of voter machines, to the numbers of voters thrown off the lists, hacking into voter counts and intimidation, that the actual opinions of the many don't matter. I believe that right now the issue is power and the dems don't have it. However, we do have popular opinion so to utilize that power we have to be in the business of whipping up emotion but it must be valid. We can't argue voter fraud but we can argue that investigation is the only sound way to protect our democracy. We can argue that not asking questions is weak. I don't think the American people realize that right now our democracy is NOT a democracy. It is a fake.

We must invoke the rules, we must use the constitution. We must do exactly what Martin Luther King had to do. He had to convince an elite white group of people that they indeed had abandoned the values that our forefathers fought for. Then and only then did the white elite start to understand that the very core of our democracy was at stake. If this argument is not made soundly...then I fear that their emotional level will drowned out whatever the dems have to say. We need to create shame by making the sins very clear without accusation by only speaking truth and what is proven.

The dems don't want to impeach, they want the right to ask questions, the dems don't want to cut and run they want the right to a formal analysis of policy. The democratic plan to the war...to study the situation and to analyse the best solutions before taking action. We can't answer that because we don't have all the appropriate information to lay out the strategy but we can promise the American people that the solutions will be studied and that all options will be on the table instead of only a narrow few. We aren't interested in revenge we are interested in getting it right. (O'Bama...I love that one).

Dems don't like those generalizations so much but we must use them in a way that makes us strong. Valid. Completely impossible to argue with. We don't want to use torture because it puts our own soldiers at risk. We don't want to use torture because it violates our integrity...INTEGRITY. We aren't using those big, emotional words...we need them but we need our big words to be valid. Not emotional without facts.

Where are the public relations folks for the dems it seems they are sleeping, or so busy defending that they have forgotten that doing what works, is the way to lead. We can't use words like "inclusive" because that word isn't popular with everyone. Dems aren't inclusive...they want everyone to do their share...we charge...give us one good reason why the wealthy should be financing less during this time of war?? They can't without defending their wealth and defending their tax cuts. We want everyone doing their share to pay the bills in a time of war. Who can argue this??

There are ways to present that make their charges completely mute...and we need to be fearless of those attacks. Also why aren't the dems banding together??? The way it is now, one dem sticks a nose out and then the rest stand back in horror as the GOP slices and dices. This is ridiculous and the dems keep doing this. Those of like minds need to band together and quick feeding the hungry monkey...each time they stick a lone dem voice out there...the rebublicans band together and attack. They all don't have to agree they just need to be putting together a list of abstract ideas that they all agree on...how about that the war needs a new analysis. Period. That's the sound bite. We don't know the solutions because the anaylsis has not been done. Hello?? Could you all agree on that and come out together??? We do have a plan, our plan is a formal analysis of the current situation.

Okay I'll stop now.

[JohnLopresti]

The BostonGlobe's signing statement expert Charlie Savage wrote, with two other reporters, one inside the Beltway, the other Kabul, an article about the absence of due process for one detainee; the article appeared three weeks ago.

[Jeb]

Check this one out - www.StandByOurPresident.com

[prostratedragon]

Sara, ABSOLUTELY! I have so longed to see those guys have to expose their evil deeds and hollow thinking in a court. The insistance on not doing so was for me the second sign, after the 2000 election debacle, of how deeply, dare I say un-American, this crew is.

[Publicus]

The politicians—democrats or otherwise, even though there are some good ones like Feingold—won't rescue us. Here's what will happen...

The Bush administration will overreach; they'll do something that even the right wing gun nuts can't accept. Then, either the politicians will finally rise to the occasion, or the people will.

Or, it will be too late and we lose the Republic. Happy 4th...

[americanforliberty]

The SCOTUS decision proves it will not be rolled over like the Congress and the Senate. I sincerely believe if we are in custody of "enemy combatants" commonly known as "prisoners of war" then we must follow Geneva Convention must be followed. Because the Geneva Convention is the rule of law when it comes to war...and as the GOPer's like to tell us we are a nation of laws.

[DemFromCT]

''as the GOPer's like to tell us we are a nation of laws.''

Actually, it's what we are constantly telling them. ;-)

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