Our Ms. Brooks: Mr. Flip-Flop
I was in a bit of a heat induced funk on Thursday and totally overlooked Rosa Brooks' latest column in the Los Angeles Times. Fortunately, I've recovered. This one is another dandy, even though it was written without the usual Brooks snark.
Her target this week is John McCain and his view that the decision of the US Supreme Court that the Gitmo detainees were entitled to habeas corpus was the worst decision ever in the history of the entire universe. Sen. McCain went even further: his campaign accused Barack Obama of exhibiting a 9/10 mindset because Sen. Obama felt the decision was the right one. Once again, Our Ms. Brooks hit the bull's eye.
...Not too long ago -- before he decided that becoming the Republican presidential nominee required him to cozy up to his party's most demagogic extremists and play politics with 9/11 -- McCain was the champion of a common-sense, values-based approach to terrorism.
It was McCain who refused to sanction torture. It was McCain who said Guantanamo detainees "have rights under various human rights declarations. And one of them is the right not to be detained indefinitely." It was McCain who advocated moving Guantanamo detainees to Kansas' Ft. Leavenworth, where they would come under the certain jurisdiction of federal courts. It was McCain who insisted that we respect the basic rights even of enemies who "don't deserve our sympathy" because "this isn't about who they are. This is about who we are."
What is so astounding about Sen. McCain's flip-flop is that the one part of his resume that is always lurking behind his rhetoric on national security is his military service, during which he was detained by the North Vietnamese and tortured. One would have thought that experience alone would have tempered his attitude on the subject once and for all. But that was then, and this is now, and McCain is running for President.
He's beginning to make Mitt Romney look like a rank amateur.
Her target this week is John McCain and his view that the decision of the US Supreme Court that the Gitmo detainees were entitled to habeas corpus was the worst decision ever in the history of the entire universe. Sen. McCain went even further: his campaign accused Barack Obama of exhibiting a 9/10 mindset because Sen. Obama felt the decision was the right one. Once again, Our Ms. Brooks hit the bull's eye.
...Not too long ago -- before he decided that becoming the Republican presidential nominee required him to cozy up to his party's most demagogic extremists and play politics with 9/11 -- McCain was the champion of a common-sense, values-based approach to terrorism.
It was McCain who refused to sanction torture. It was McCain who said Guantanamo detainees "have rights under various human rights declarations. And one of them is the right not to be detained indefinitely." It was McCain who advocated moving Guantanamo detainees to Kansas' Ft. Leavenworth, where they would come under the certain jurisdiction of federal courts. It was McCain who insisted that we respect the basic rights even of enemies who "don't deserve our sympathy" because "this isn't about who they are. This is about who we are."
What is so astounding about Sen. McCain's flip-flop is that the one part of his resume that is always lurking behind his rhetoric on national security is his military service, during which he was detained by the North Vietnamese and tortured. One would have thought that experience alone would have tempered his attitude on the subject once and for all. But that was then, and this is now, and McCain is running for President.
He's beginning to make Mitt Romney look like a rank amateur.
Labels: Election 2008
posted by Diane at 3:30 PM
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