Is that the issue is a moral one, meaning there is a correct choice and an incorrect choice. Mika doesn't want to admit that there are black and white issues and that there are opinions which are correct and moral and opinions which are incorrect and immoral.

The GITMO residents were all captured in foreign countries by the military as part of an armed conflict. They are POWs, enemy combatants, whatever. They have rights under the Geneva Conventions but they ABSOLUTELY DO NOT HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS A US CITIZEN anymore than Japenese or German troops captured in WW2 had any access to the US courts.

To give these individuals the same rights as US citizens is completely wrong, misguided, naiive, and immoral. These are people who have dclared war on the US and in fact, all of Western society.

The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic. Let's get it back! Alan Keyes '08.

I hope a video with the conversation between Mika and Jack Welch which took place around 8:20 am is posted.  It was a great debate between Jack Welch's common sense and the dangerous idealism of liberal elites like Mika.

But those 5 SCOTUS judges and their water-carriers will simply say that the terrorists were not predisposed to hating and wanting to REALLY kill us until their mistreatment at GITMO at the hands of the evil Bush administration.

If we had ONLY treated them fairly from the beginning, they'd NEVER have done it and would have stayed at home and been commissioners of their local Fantasy Jihadi Football League.

I can't help but wonder if one of these essentially dumb statements by Obama (actually an accumulation of them from months ago up through the convention) may make the Dems at their convention look around and make Hillary the candidate after all.

Lee T.

"Democrats, there is one reason Obama is your party's nominee, and it's not because he's black -- it's because he's not Hillary Clinton." -- Rush Limbaugh, 6/2/08

Mark,

I happen by via Hot Air; I'm always glad that I do because you do a very solid job. This was a great post.

Although I don't think the Obama "Alex" ad is all that effective (don't get me started), this position that Obama has taken (and insisted on digging in his heels on) is a complete loser. Sorry to sensationalize this, but McCain and every Republican running for national office should be looking to run ads with interviews with surviviving spouses and surviving adult children of 9/11 victims in which they're asked how THEY feel about extending criminal due process rights to detainees and how safe THEY feel with the prospect of an Obama presidency. Obama's position--echoed by Susan Rice and advertised by the likes of Mika and Capeheart--is terrifying.

Others can parse what Mika REALLY meant. I'm convinced what she means is that those who don't agree with her, Obama, and the like are immoral. In so doing, she's taken Obama's San Francisco remarks to a much higher level, and it sure sounds like a great 527 ad to me. I don't give a rat's a** what our soldiers do to detainees, but it certainly sounds as if the scheme in place was procedurally sufficient--military tribunal followed by an appeal channeled to the DC Circuit.

You describe this as a "policy equivalent of Dukakis-in-a-tank." I submit that McCain or the 527s or both need a mugshot of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed matched with his rap sheet and Obama's voice talking about "those folks" down there in Gitmo. This is Willie Horton material.

Shifting gears somewhat, have you noticed how Obama talks about being tougher with domestic opponents than global opponents? As I read elsewhere last week, Obama wants to impose more "conditions" before debating McCain than he wants to impose before meeting with leaders of rogue nations. Likewise, last week, he alluded to Sean Connery's lines from "The Untouchables" about beating back Al Capone when talking about McCain and Republicans, but he's soft on detainees suspected of horrible acts.

One last thing. For my edification, Jake Tapper seems to be the only MSM journalist actually trying to get in Obama's grill and to check under his hood. Am I correct? If not, please speak up. And can you identify any other journalists who are actually doing their job? 

I don't buy into the argument that these terrorists should be denied constitutional rights simply because "these terrorists want nothing better than to kill us"  What about the Unabomber or Timothy McVeigh?  Both guys had aspirations to kill and terrorize as many people as possible and yet nobody took away their right to a lawyer, the right to appear before a judge and so forth.  A person's intent, no matter how evil and disgusting, should not be considered when trying to decide if a person is entitled to those rights.  Because you get into a very slippery slope of determining a person's rights based upon a crime that they have been accused of and not yet having been proven guilty.

However...I do agree with the argument that these terrorists shouldn't *legally* be allowed to exercise the rights of the Constitution.  Especially if they aren't American citizens and were apprehended on foreign soil during a time of war.  I agree with a previous poster who says they should be held in the terms of the Geneva conventions.  And I don't think the Neuremberg trials were immoral.  I don't like the idea of holding somebody indefinitely based on suspicions and never giving that person their day in court...Mainly because I would hope that our government wouldn't want that for its own citizens.  If an American citizen or soldier was suspected of a vicious crime in a foreign country, I would want that individual to eventually have their day in court to prove their innocence. 

So, while I do think these terrorists should eventually have their day in court, I absolutely do not think it should be in a cushy American courtroom enjoying the cushy (and quite error-prone) American judicial system.

"This is a freakshow and I am screaming..."  --  The Cure

Bush should reinstate Clinton/Gore policy of rendition....

Reference items for this bit of fun:

1.) Transcript of Director Hayden's Interview with Charlie Rose

2.) This from White House intelligence advisor Richard Clarke's book] - my bold.

RICHARD CLARKE - Snatches, or more properly "extraordinary renditions," were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgement of the host government. . . The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass."

And shortly thereafter, Bill Clinton ordered the CIA to establish the US program of extraordinary rendition (PDD#39); the idea being that we could ship them off to you know who in Egypt - so that they could be tortured to get information out of them.

President Bush should simply announce to the MSM, "Fine. Even Charlie Rose came to understand, once he was exposed to a few facts and history (no thanks to you folks), that it was better that we abandon the policy of renditioning these terrorists to places were we had no control and where God knows what was done to them, to our own facilities were we did have much more civil rules in place and where the media would have knowledge and access to.  So, effective today, I am reinstating the Gore/Clinton policy of internationally illegal covert action better known as the "go grab their ass and ship them off to foreigners to be tortured" policy. Good day.