Obama's Military Tribunals
Another Friday, another bow to Bush's antiterror legacy.
President Obama's endorsements of Bush-Cheney antiterror policies are by now routine: for example, opposing the release of prisoner abuse photographs and support for indefinite detention for some detainees, and that's just this week. More remarkable is White House creativity in portraying these U-turns as epic change. Witness yesterday's announcement endorsing military commissions.
White House officials insist that their tribunals will be kinder and gentler, stressing additional due-process safeguards for terrorists on trial for war crimes. But the debate that has convulsed the political system since 9/11 isn't about procedural nuances. It has been over core principles, with Democrats decrying a "shadow justice system" and claiming that "Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists."
The latter quote is from a speech by Senator Obama in 2007 denouncing "a legal framework that does not work." He also referred to the civilian criminal justice system and courts martial that Democrats then claimed, and many still claim, are the right venues for antiterror prosecutions. After the Supreme Court's Boumediene decision gave terrorists habeas rights, Mr. Obama again laid into the Bush Administration's "legal black hole" and "dangerously flawed legal approach," which "undermines the very values we are fighting to defend."
....Mr. Obama deserves credit for accepting that the civilian courts are largely unsuited for the realities of the war on terror. He has now decided to preserve a tribunal process that will be identical in every material way to the one favored by Dick Cheney -- and which, contrary to the narrative that Democrats promulgated for years, will be the fairest and most open war-crimes trials in U.S. history. Meanwhile, friends should keep certain newspaper editors away from sharp objects. Their champion has repudiated them once again.
And why shouldn't the WSJ be pleased? Glenn Greenwald, who's been all over this for months now, offered this short list of what Obama has done just this week:
A 1400-word fairwell puff piece by Ben Feller, White House correspondent for The Associated Press, is quick to lay its cards on the table: judge Bush by his image, not his actions:
Bush's style and temperament are as much his legacy as his decisions. Policy shapes lives, but personality creates indelible memories - positive and negative.
Call it distinctly Bush.
No, call it distinctly AP, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, NYT, LAT, M$M. Call it a totally depraved media system that can't possibly tell the truth, except about sports scores and the weather.
The headline of the AP story? "Analysis: Bush's personality shapes his legacy"
The truth? "Media Sycophants Shape His Legacy, With Stories Just Like This"
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