Punked

by digby

The “compromise” will, as I predicted, allow the “tough interrogations” by amending the war crimes act. And they will reportedly create a new JAG office to review classified information and determine if terrorist suspects can see it if it’s being used against them in a trial. We already know they have devised some habeas corpus loophole to keep innocent people imprisoned without any due process.

Republicans are happy.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said…”If this language becomes law, the Congress will have given us the clarity and the support that we need to move forward with a detention and interrogation program that allows us to continue to defend the homeland, attack al-Qaida and protect American and allied lives,” he said in a written message to agency personnel.

The Republicans are now standing shoulder to shoulder having worked this whole thing out — they are strong, they are tough, they are moral, and they are willing to work together to form a compromise that they can all live with. Aren’t they great? This is why we should vote Republican.

Now watch this drive.

Ed Rogers on Hardball said Bush got to look both tough on terror and effective in bringing the senate along. Kweisi Mfume says McCain looks good to Democrats and independents and Bush looks good to Americans in general.

Can anyone in the know explain to me how letting McCain run with this torture debate benefitted the Democrats in any way?

Here’s how the optics look to me:

McCain, the Republican rebel maverick, showed that Republicans are moral and look out for their troops.

Bush, the Republican statesman and leader, showed that he is committed to protecting Americans but that he is willing to listen and compromise when people of good faith express reservations about tactics.

The Democrats showed they are ciphers who don’t have the stones to even say a word when the most important moral issue confronting the government is being debated.

Unless the Dems ready to threaten to filibuster a national security bill a month before an election — which I doubt — I expect that the Republicans are going to rush this through the conference and force through this piece of shit bill in a hurry, just like they forced the AUMF through in October 2002 and give the republicans a big honking “victory” in the GWOT.

The Dems are all going to be twisted into pretzels and look like they have no backbones as they struggle with a united GOP saying that McCain and Huckleberry Graham made sure “the program” is moral and necessary. Vote for it for for the terrorists. So they’ll end up voting for it without getting any benefit from it.

I honestly think it would have been much, much better if they’d have forced their way into the debate and taken a firm stand — if only to show they give a damn. This is a turn-out election and I have a feeling many a Democrat’s stomach will turn as they see this triumph of GOP “leadership” in action. Why bother to vote when the Democrats don’t bother to show up?

Update: MSNBC

The accord between President Bush and Republican Senate leaders announced Thursday afternoon on tribunals for al Qaida detainees at Guantanamo Navy Base sets up litmus-test votes both in the House and Senate next week.

These votes fit into the Republican strategy of scheduling showdowns that will highlight differences between the two parties in the run-up to the Nov. 7 elections.

The effect may be to put Democrats in close races on the spot — Democrats such as Sen. Bob Menendez in New Jersey and Rep. Sherrod Brown, who’s running for the Senate seat now held by Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio.

Just a few hours before the deal was announced, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid had held a press conference in which he mocked GOP leaders for being unable to come up with an agreement on detainee interrogation and tribunals.

He scoffed at the Republican “do nothing Congress.”

I don’t know for sure, but it sure looks to me as if Reid got rolled by McCain.

But now it seems likely that Republican leaders will have at least two significant bills to vote on next week, a Mexican border fence bill and the detainee tribunal bill.

Who won? Who lost?

[…]

Political winners, assuming the detainee deal is drafted and goes to a floor vote in the the House and Senate:

* Bush: In return for making some concessions, he gets clear guidance for CIA interrogators on what they can and can’t do to detainees and he ends an intra-party impasse.
* McCain: Conservative commentators had attacked him for blocking Bush on the detainee tribunals but now he can resume his courtship of the GOP rank and file as he looks to the 2008 presidential nomination.

Probable losers: Civil libertarians who may still object to the tribunals and Democrats who have been laying low on the issue, apparently assuming that McCain-Bush impasse would prevent any deal. “They painted themselves into a corner,” said GOP Senate aide Don Stewart. “They said, ‘I’m with McCain,’ and now McCain has reached an agreement.”

Goddamit, I told you so. I couldn’t be more unhappy that I was right.

Update:

Marty Lederman: Senators Snatch Defeat From Jaws of Victory: U.S. to be First Nation to Authorize Violations of Geneva

Clarification: When I wrote “why bother to vote” I meant it in a purely rhetorical sense. Of course you must vote and you must vote for Democrats. I don’t believe they are playing this well in a turnout mid-term election but we simply have no choice but to try to stop the people who are actually ordering this torture and degradation.

Send your representatives letters and let them know what you think. But vote! Unless you’re leaving the country the only choice you have is to fight.

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