Make Them Pay

We're in Day One of the post-torture era, and I'm not really feeling good about it. Yesterday was a defining moment for the country. Some are consoling themselves with the hopes that the Supreme Court will step in and save the day. And when I say "some" I mean Republican Senators:

Even some Republicans who voted for the bill said they expected the Supreme Court to strike down the legislation because of the provision barring court detainees’ challenges, an outcome that would send the legislation right back to Congress.

“We should have done it right, because we’re going to have to do it again,” said Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon, who voted to strike the provision and yet supported the bill.

What a small man, looking to someone else to clean up your own mistakes. Sen. Smith, you voted to overturn 800 years of law by eliminating habeas corpus. Never mind the fact that there's no guarantee that the Supreme Court would strike it down (Hamdan was only a 5-3 decision, Roberts recused but voted with the minority in a lower Court ruling on the same case, and John Paul Stevens is 86); never mind the fact that if detainees cannot challenge their detention, I don't know how they would bring forward a case (though Hamdan seemed to figure it out); but, as Scott Lemieux writes:

the key point here above all else is that opponents of this scandalous legislation should not use the courts as a crutch. Given the power of statist conservatives on the Supreme Court and the fact that Congress' constitutional claims are very strong, and the general tendency of courts to defer to the executive when it makes "national security" claims, it is overwhelmingly likely that if it passes the legislation will be upheld.

Congress makes the laws, they don't just punt them over to the courts. Gordon Smith ought to be ashamed of himself, and step down today to let the courts do his job for him.

The part that I can't seem to understand is how the Democrats think this legislation will be used to attack THEM, and not the other way around. While the Republicans have spent years trying to rationalize and justify torture, with few words of disapproval from the other side (remember, Abu Ghraib wasn't mentioned hardly at all in the 2004 Presidential campaign), still a majority of Americans oppose it because it represents nothing of America, plays to the worst elements of fear and revenge, and is simply cruel without being effective.

For some reason, the Democratic leadership thinks they have to play defense here:

Republicans, especially in the House, plan to use the military commission and wiretapping legislation as a one-two punch against Democrats this fall. The legislative action prompted extraordinarily blunt language from House GOP leaders, foreshadowing a major theme for the campaign. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) issued a written statement on Wednesday declaring: "Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 159 of her Democrat colleagues voted today in favor of MORE rights for terrorists." [...]

Democratic leaders stressed that the attacks will not work. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, cited polling that he said suggested that matters such as warrantless wiretapping and military commissions are "secondary issues," lagging well behind Iraq in the public's mind. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said it is "beyond [his] ability to comprehend" how a member of Congress could be accused of supporting terrorism.

But Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a prominent Democratic polling firm, tried to raise alarms yesterday with the release of focus group findings that suggest that the attacks would work if not countered forcefully. "Attacks on Democrats for opposing any effort to stop terrorists . . . were highly effective," the pollsters' memo stated.

Secondary issue. You fool. And by the way, Sen. Reid, conprehend it, because your party is already being called the terrorists' rights party.

This violent assault on the Constitution could actually be used to our advantage, but the leadership is completely unable to figure that out. Given that, why would Republicans ever be afraid to vote for something because of the political consequences? Only we think that way.

The only good news is that the people running for Congress that we need to take back the majority don't live in Washington, DC. They're real and good Americans, and I think they understand this issue instinctively. This story about a House race in upstate New York is VERY encouraging.

John McHugh is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and he supported the original Bush Administration bill. And Bob called him on it, first detailing Bob's strong opposition to torture and then saying:

"My opponent this fall, incumbent Republican John McHugh, firmly supports the Bush Administration's right to torture. Perhaps because he never served in the military, he doesn't understand how opposing torture protects our own troops. Perhaps because he hasn't put in the work to study the issue, he doesn't know that torture doesn't work and produces unreliable information. And perhaps because he has been in Washington so long, he has lost touch with the basic morality of what it means to be an American.

I can't say why he takes the position he does. But I do know this: he is profoundly, seriously, and morally wrong."

When I read that, I suspected that would get a response, but I expected the BS "Dr. Bob Johnson wants to take away the tools blah, blah" ... but we got something else. John McHugh wanted no part of being labeled that way, and he just freaked.

"The appalling statement by Dr. Robert Johnson that I support torture and have 'lost touch with the basic morality of what it means to be an American,' is an outright lie. [...]

What Dr. Johnson asserts is from another page out of the Democrat playbook - throwing lies out there and seeing if they'll stick. I have never voted to authorize the use of torture or any enhanced interrogation techniques. [...]

I have been with our troops on the ground in every theater of conflict in which our military forces have been engaged since 1995 - from Haiti and Kosovo and Bosnia to Afghanistan and Iraq - and understand both the great dangers they face, and the sacrifices they make on behalf of all Americans."

"Been with our troops on the ground"? Please. On fact-finding trips? Is there a special category of veteran for that? But I'll let that go. For now.

What amazes me is both the incredibly angry tone of the release and the almost amazing assertion "I have never voted to authorize the use of torture or any enhanced interrogation techniques." WTF?!?!? He's running away from that as fast as he can.

But how could anyone with even a passing knowledge of what he voted for say such a thing? I was flabbergasted ... this is supposed to be the big cudgel to hammer Democrats. And he's running like a little girl. And just because Bob hammered him, rightly, on the fact that this is outside of American values.

Brilliant.

It's up to the Fighting Dems, the challengers who had nothing to do with that mess in Washington this week, to shove this entire thing right back in their opponent's faces. I've been saying for quite a while now that we're going to take back the Congress IN SPITE OF the leadership, because we have good men and women in the districts who are going to be willing to say what needs to be said. This is SO encouraging.

Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania came out with a similar statement as well. The challengers must do what the leadership could not.