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Thursday, January 22. 2009
No Caroline?
What a disappointment to see Caroline Kennedy has withdrawn her name for consideration to take the Senate seat once held by the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. The guess is the governor of New York told her he was picking someone else, giving our favorite Kennedy a chance to withdraw publicly.She says it was in deference to her Uncle Teddy’s recent health crisis Tuesday at Barack Obama’s inauguration luncheon. I doubt anyone thinks her affection for the Lion of the Senate is disingenuous, just that it’s as good a reason as any for taking herself out of the running. A high profile public job has never been her style and I think that’s the main reason; she wants to return the life of a private citizen. It’s that type of personality that would have made her one of the best senators of our time.
The Senate finally approved Clinton. One Republican Senator, John Cornyn of Texas, held up her appointment by one day — despite saying he was going to vote to approve Clinton. He’s on the losing team, they only hold only, what, 40 seats in the Senate, so they lost big, but he just wants to let the new administration know he has the power, all by himself, to stall the president’s plans.
Secretary Clinton had her first day on the job Thursday and the applause from the State Department employees was quite moving for the new secretary. The ceremony, if you want to call it that, was broadcast because the foreign policy philosophy of Barack Obama is so far removed from that of his predecessor, the reception at Foggy Bottom was a news worthy moment. That, and of course, she’s Hillary Clinton, the most celebrated politician not in the White House Oval Office.
So, diplomacy is off to a big start.
Wednesday the new president, Barack Obama in case you missed it, met with his military team to discuss three main topics: exiting Iraq in Obama’s 16 month timeline, ramping up in Afghanistan and closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, the latter being the most contentious.
On Morning Joe both Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan argues for the continued abuse of keeping people at Gitmo indefinitely without charges being brought and for the continued use of torture as a means of interrogation. How can they possibly maintain that opinion? The judge in charge of the trials involving Gitmo detainees won’t even prosecute a main suspect because he was tortured! And she’s a Bush appointee!
There’s one reason, and only one reason, to use torture: to cause intense suffering to your adversaries. No one has ever received usable intelligence from torture; that fact has been widely publicized, but the proponents of torture, either ignore it or they brush it aside with non sequitur arguments like, “would you like Khalid Sheikh Mohamed living in your neighborhood?”
Who actually thinks these detainees would be released into the U.S. public? Some would no doubt go back to their home countries and others would wind up in prison for the remainder of their lives. But we wouldn’t find any of them walking the streets of San Diego or any other American community.
It’s a television and radio debate tactic: when you don’t have the facts, or moral argument, on your side, resort to the absurd. Scarborough was so absurd, he wouldn’t even let Mika Brzezinski make her point. That’s another television and radio debate tactic: don’t let the other guy make his or her point.
But that’s not the end of the absurdity. Senator Brownback of Kansas actually said, of Fort Leavenworth military correctional facility, it is not a prison, it’s an educational facility. Really Senator? You gotta be joking! Leavenworth is being considered for placing the Gitmo detainees because Fort Leavenworth is the only maximum-security prison in the military prison system!
Brownback, a tough, military hardliner who has never served, wants to keep the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay open and he wants to continue the practice of torturing prisoners.
And, of course, he wants to make trouble for the new administration because he can. But the Senator is going to go on television and lie? Oh, well, it’s Republican Senator Brownback; honesty has not been one of his long suits.
Back in the day, I had a friend, Viddy, who had been incarcerated at Fort Leavenworth and according to him, Leavenworth was no picnic. Brownback is just blowing smoke.
As are the other Republican senators who are holding up the appointments of Eric Holder for Attorney General and Tim Geithner for Secretary of the Treasury. They just want to show the administration they have at least a minimum of power left in their depleted ranks.
Now I have to take a nap before going to work. Being vigilant is tiring.
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