Exchange between Keith Olbermann and law professor Jonathon Turley (via Daily Kos):
Olbermann: … It is easy to imagine Americans who are patriotic but scared, who could just sort of dismiss habeas corpus and other civil liberties as luxuries that make us weak right now. Explain why that’s exactly backwards, why they’re not luxuries, why they’re necessities that make us strong.
Turley: First of all, habeas corpus is sometimes treated like some trick by a Philadelphia lawyer. It is actually the foundation for all other rights. When the government throws you into a dungeon for what you say or who you pray to, it’s habeas corpus that’s the right that allows you to see the enforcement of the other rights. So without habeas corpus, the rest of it is just aspirational and meaningless.
The danger when you walk away from these values, these rights that define us have been proven by this president. The greatest irony of the Bush Administration is that his legacy will be to show the dangers of walking away from those rights that define us. We’re very much alone today. He can’t go to Canada without people protesting, Miss America can’t even go to Mexico without being booed. We’re viewed as a rogue nation and it is a dangerous world to live in when you’re alone. In Italy, they’re prosecuting in abstentia our own agents. This doesn’t make us safer…. It’s very interesting that the lesson this president may leave for his successors is that whether you are inclined to walk away from those core rights or not, that is what puts us in the greatest danger.
But, I suppose, the real answer is that all those foreigners are nothing but stupid, terrorist-loving America-haters. Like the liberals Mr. Limbaugh talks so much about.
Turley doesn’t mention Russia, but isn’t it great that Bush has ticked off that country too? One that still has thousands of nuclear warheads at its disposal? I’m no fan of Putin, but for crying out loud, why deliberately antagonize him by scrapping the ABM treaty so you can pursue a boondoggle missle defense program of very doubtful capability & put it at Russia’s doorstep…ok this having nothing to do with The Great Writ, sorry!
I think this is obviously part of Bush’s great plan. They hate our freedom, remember? So if we get rid of our freedom, they won’t hate us anymore. </sarcasm>
But seriously, why are a former sportscaster and a couple of comedians (Stewart, Colbert) the only people on TV who seem to realize that habeas is the foundation of our country?
It’s the same old thing. Respectable people are not allowed to point out when the Emperor has no clothes. It’s the children, the fools, and the jesters.
Glenn-
Bush hasn’t ticked off Russia. Bush’s failures in the middle east, which is at Europe’s front door, and condescending treatment of western European leaders have simply given Russia an opportunity to advance its interests in Europe at our expense. Complaining about our ditching the treaty on anti-ballistic missiles (which whether wise or not we certainly had the legal right to do), and more particularly complaining about our deploying elements of an ABM system in former Warsaw Pact countries, is just a convenient lever to that end. After all, if you correct that the missile defense program is a boondogle and has doubtful capacity I’m sure the Russian military can figure it out too. No, Bush hasn’t antagonized Russia, he has been a gift from heaven to a highly nationalistic, oil-enriched empire. Our one blessing seems to be that however clumsy Bush has been, Russia seems bent on reminding Europeans that there is something even worse next door.
I’m no lawyer, but Sec7 sez:
`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
Doesn’t that word “alien” sort of stick out? So aside from Padilla, which I thought was now straightened out (judicially anyway), what’s the problem?
Paul,
Well, yes, why give Putin anything to go on or any excuse to make the U.S. look bad & advance his de-glastnosting agenda, if it’s not truly necessary? I would say scrapping the ABM treaty was not necessary, legal right to do it or not. I would have to agree with you to the extent that nationalists in Russia who want to see the second coming of the USSR (or at least the Tsarist empire) can & do use Bush’s immense unpopularity to their advantage. That might be tolerable, IF I agreed with the things that make him unpopular. And yes, the Russian military has certainly figured out that the missle defense system is easily defeated, if it works at all, with multiple-warhead missles.