Choice One: Empty Gestures

As the day opened Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Senator John Warner were pushing a proposal that would call on the president to lay out a plan for ending the war in Iraq, but not really. They basically took the proposal from the Democrats - set a timetable for getting out, to force the Iraqis to develop the ability to keep their own country stable - and edited it. Their special version doesn't have anything to do with setting dates for the gradual withdrawal of troops. It demands paperwork.

And they passed that. The Democrats' version just wasn't going to fly.
As the New York Times explains –

The Senate signaled its growing unease with the war in Iraq today, voting overwhelmingly to demand regular reports from the White House on the course of the conflict and on the progress that Iraqi forces are making in securing their own country.

The vote, 79 to 19, came on an amendment to a spending bill that ultimately passed without opposition. The bipartisan support for the amendment sponsored by Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, reflected anxiety among Republicans as well as Democrats.

Mr. Warner said afterward that he was "very grateful" for the wide backing of his amendment, which he called "forward looking" and distinctly different from a Democratic alternative that many Republicans said would signal that the United States was ready to "cut and run" from the battlefield.

The message that Iraqis should take from the Senate action, Mr. Warner said, is that "we have stood with you, we have done our part," and now it is time for them to do theirs. He said 2006 would be a pivotal year for the campaign in Iraq.

Minutes before endorsing Mr. Warner's amendment, the Senate voted, 58 to 40, against a measure offered by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, to demand that President Bush set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

Well, it's something.  Is it progress?  The demand is non-binding, as they say.  They may get the reports, and they may not.

So while the president was in Japan, the first stop on the Asia tour that ends in Mongolia, his own party, out of "anxiety" or something, suddenly demands they be let in on what's going on.  Scan the general reaction on the right - these backstabbers in his own party are saying they don't trust the guy, who really shouldn't have to explain anything to anybody.  Faithless cowards!  Scan the reaction on the left - even the man's own supporters know enough is enough and we all deserve to know what's going on.

And the most obvious thing everyone knows, and many say - with sixty percent of the public now saying this war hasn't been worth the cost, and with a clear majority now saying the president obviously misled us into this war, these guys were trapped. They, unlike the president, will be up for reelection. They had do something that looked like the were players in this game, something that gave the appearance they had some control, that they were doing the "oversight" part of their actual job.

So they said they'd like a status report now and then. Are we making progress? Are any more Iraqi battalions anywhere near ready to do anything at all this quarter? What's up?

You can imagine each "regular report," should they get one now and then, will be a highly structured set of variations on the familiar theme: "Things are fine; trust me on that."

That will do for the president's party. And so it goes. It's cover. They're losing control of the situation and now playing defense. Very odd for the majority here.

But there's a bit more.

As you recall, last week there was this: Senate Approves Limiting Rights of U.S. Detainees - "The Senate voted Thursday to strip captured 'enemy combatants' at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme Court when it allowed them to challenge their detentions in United States courts."

This was covered in these pages in some detail here last weekend.

There was no end to the controversy this created - see this for links to Monday's editorials suggesting habeas corpus is a good thing, and giving one man the power to lock up anyone he decided was bad, without proof, and with specific charges, without communication, forever, with no way to appeal what was happening to him or to explain to anyone - no trial at all - was maybe something we ought not to grant this president, or anyone. And here three hundred fifty of the top law professors in America say this is madness, but carefully. My high-powered Wall Street attorney friend forwarded me the letter from Michael Greco, the president of the American Bar Association, saying much the same:

The U.S. Senate last week adopted with no hearings and with little debate Senator Lindsey Graham's proposal to eliminate habeas corpus rights for Guantánamo detainees, denying them access to federal courts. The American Bar Association urges the senators to reconsider and defeat that enormous change to our fundamental legal system.

Throughout our nation's history, starting with the defense by lawyer, later president, John Adams of Massachusetts, of the British soldiers who fired on patriots in the Boston Massacre, it has been our commitment to basic principles of justice, even for the most unpopular among us, that has allowed us to maintain the high moral ground in the world, the most strategically important territory for us to occupy as we struggle with the enemies of freedom.

Our influence in the world is directly affected by our actions with respect to those we detain. The prisoners in Guantánamo have been held there, largely incommunicado, for four years. That fact alone offends our heritage of due process and fairness. The writ of habeas corpus was developed precisely to prevent the prolonged detention of individuals without charge, by allowing those held to petition the federal courts. To eliminate the right of habeas corpus would be shocking to our nation.

As Senator Graham himself has stated repeatedly, in the battle against terrorism we cannot allow ourselves to become like the enemy. Adoption of his amendment would undermine the very principles that distinguish us from our enemies.

Such comments seem endless, and on the other side you hear stuff like this, defending unlimited detention and even torture:

The enemy being fought is undeserving of humane treatment, and the Arabs and Muslims must be made to understand this. Indeed, it is an affront to morality and decency to so treat people with humanity. All war is nasty, and this war is particularly nasty and cannot be made pretty. It is the reluctance of the Americans and the British to use the appropriate level of force that is a cogent reason why Iraq should never have been fought.

That's the core counterargument - "it is an affront to morality and decency" to treat such people with "humanity."

Choose your side of the argument. A web search will give you thousands folks agreeing with you, with supporting documentary stuff, whichever way you choose.

The senate had to vote on this, and came up with a compromise, seriously detailed here and here.

Basically Senator Graham proposed an amendment to his own amendment, co-sponsored by Carl Levin and John Kyl (text here) - this still denies habeas corpus to these folks but allows a bit more judicial review than the version that Graham attached the appropriations bill last week. Senator Bingaman proposed a different amendment (text here) - and that allowed habeas, but it cut off lawsuits challenging the conditions of confinement. The Bingaman version got voted sown 44-54, and the Graham-Levin thing passed 84-14, so in short, this would, like the original, eliminate habeas for Guantánamo detainees, overturn the previous ruling these guys had rights (Rasul), and more than likely prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on the merits of the Hamdan case now under review.

So? Half a loaf is better than none? The bottom line is you get to have your say if you're in for ten years or set to be executed. Otherwise you're shit out of luck.

As in this in the Washington Post, some comments from an attorney representing a curious detainee at Guantánamo. As noted here, "When senators complain that 'terrorists' shouldn't be entitled to habeas corpus review of their detentions, they're missing the point. It isn't enough for the administration to claim someone is a terrorist."

This "terrorist" named Adel, and his attorney notes this –

Adel is innocent. I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.

No problem? Not exactly. –

The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later. And these facts would still be a secret but for one thing: habeas corpus.

Oh well. To treat such people with "humanity" is "an affront to morality and decency," after all.

Yes, the military admits many of those held at Guantánamo are guilty of nothing, and have little or no useful "intelligence' for us, to match their admission that perhaps ninety percent of those held at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad were just caught up in sweeps and were just unlucky. But it's war. You just can let people go. It looks bad.

Everyone is posturing. The unlucky disappear or die.

Oh yeah, the McCain amendment, saying we will follow our own rules and not torture folks, is still alive, attached to the bill in question.

Will Bush veto the bill, as he says he will, to block the McCain "restrictions" on his rights as president? To get this restriction on detainee appeals that the administration wants, he may have to sign the anti-torture provision Vice President Cheney opposes and has been trying to stop, or modify to allow the CIA to torture at will. Sending a silly report every few months is not a problem. This McCain stuff is.

We'll see what happens after Mongolia.


Choice Two: Bad Polls

Late Monday the 14th -' from a CNN and US Today and Gallup poll here - Americans say they trust George W. Bush less than they trusted Bill Clinton, by a pretty big margin. About fifty percent of people polled said they disliked Bush, and six percent claimed to hate him. Overall approval - thirty-seven percent. Do folks trust Bush more than they did Clinton? Forty-eight percent said they trusted Bush less, while only thirty-six percent said they trusted him more. Yipes! Fifteen percent called it a tie - a pox on both their houses.

Also of note, approval rating exactly four years ago of eighty-seven percent, and now thirty-seven, percent, with now majority disapproval how things are handled on all issues - the economy, immigration, federal spending, Iraq, terrorism in general. Doesn't matter. Take your pick. For the first time in these Gallup polls, a majority of Americans - 52 to 46 percent - say the guy is neither honest nor trustworthy.

And that Clinton thing just has to hurt.

So now what?

If you watch Fox News and such you hear, endlessly, the story of how Reagan recovered from low numbers after Iran-Contra and all that, and "ended the cold war" (single-handedly, we're told), so Bush will do the same. He'll do something spectacular that will make him a universally loved and respected leader like Reagan (yes, yes, some disagree on that).

But what rabbit will he pull out of his hat? He cannot go to Berlin and say, "Pull Down this wall!" No wall now. No one to say it to - no Soviet Union or anything like it.

Trapped by a lack of a good opportunity!

And he may not have the personality for such gestures.

The Washington Times notes this –

President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, administration sources say. The president's reclusiveness in the face of relentless public scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr. Bush has also reduced contact with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, administration sources said on the condition of anonymity.

Matt Drudge reports this –

The sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions.

Comment here –

This man is running our country. And he won't speak to anyone - ANYONE - other than Condi Rice, his mom, and Karen Hughes? That leaves out the entire Department of Defense - kind of important during wartime - the CIA, every other agency and the entire White House staff.

It honestly sounds like he's losing control.

And he's in charge of our country.

Not just worst president ever. But quickly becoming scariest president ever.

They shouldn't have asked that poll question about Clinton.