Friday - September 15, 2006

RINO Rebellion

Sen. John Warner of Virginia, Senator John McCain of Arizona, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Susan Collins of Maine. They would give captured terrorists the right to view classified documents and throw out any testimony that was “coerced”. Colin Powell has also jumped into the fray on the side of the Gang Of Four who, along with all of the Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee have decided to give full Geneva Convention rights to captured Al-Qaeda terrorists.

They are proposing a watered-down version of a proposed bill by the administration to settle the matter of how to bring these terrorists to justice in a court of law or tribunal, as the Supreme Court mandated. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has decided to bypass the committee’s bogus recommendation and bring the President’s plan to the Senate directly for a floor vote. This one is about to get ugly. Real ugly.

Besides the fact that these four must be on drugs to think captured terrorists need to see classified documents, there is the political factor. Both John Warner and John McCain have Presidential ambitions and this is a chance for them to start distancing themselves from the Bush Administration, which currently is experiencing low poll numbers which might hurt their own poll numbers. Who knows what Graham and Collins are up to? Colin Powell is a non-player who is still mad at Donald Rumsfeld.

All this kerfuffle is going to do is alienate more conservative voters from the GOP, I’m afraid. The Democrats on the Armed Services Committee (Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Robert Byrd, etc.) are laughing their donkey butts off. We, the American people are just going to get screwed while the Senate plays games and jockeys for position in 2008. I need a drink. How about you ... ?

Senate To Settle Detainee Issue On Floor
_{WASHINGTON (YAHOO NEWS) - September 15, 2006}

Senate GOP leaders facing rebellion in their own ranks against President Bush’s plan to interrogate and prosecute terrorism suspects will call for a vote on the proposal as early as next week. Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell said no decision had been made on when to vote on the measure, but he added that he hoped a floor vote would settle the issue.

The election-year debate has pitted Republicans against each other and kept in limbo the legal bounds of the CIA program to detain and interrogate “high-value” terrorism suspects. A successful vote for Bush also would allow the president to begin prosecuting detainees allegedly connected to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “I think the president is right on this issue and I think the majority is correct on this,” McConnell, R-Ky., said.

A Republican-led Senate committee defied Bush on Thursday and approved terror-detainee legislation the president has vowed to block. Republican Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia, normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Senate Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote, with Warner and three other GOP lawmakers joining Democrats.

The president’s measure would go further than that bill, allowing classified evidence to be withheld from defendants in terror trials and using coerced testimony. The legislation also would revise the law that interprets the nation’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions, the treaty that sets the standard for treatment of war prisoners, so that harsh interrogations of detainees would not be questioned in court.

Warner as well as Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., oppose the legislation because they say it could expose U.S. troops to abusive treatment in future wars. They also contend that barring a defendant from access to evidence used to convict them would undermine the credibility of the court.

With the two sides unable to reach an accord, McConnell said it was time to “let the Congress work its will.” But whether the majority of senators will agree remains unclear. Eleven Armed Services Committee Democrats joined Warner, McCain, Graham and Maine Republican Susan Collins in voting in favor of the alternative legislation.

The vote by the moderate Collins underscored that there might be broad enough GOP support to successfully take on Bush on the floor of the Republican-run Senate. A surprise entry into the fray was Colin Powell, Bush’s first secretary of state, who announced his opposition to his old boss’ plan, saying it would hurt the country. Powell’s successor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, sprang to the president’s defense in a letter of her own.

As the battle mushrooms, it threatens to undermine campaign season assertions by the administration that it has shown a steady hand on security matters and that Republicans should be trusted over Democrats on such issues. Bush still has many congressional allies, including House and Senate leaders and conservatives, who want to align themselves with the president’s tough stance on interrogation and prosecution. The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday passed a bill that supports the administration’s position by 52-8.

- More on the story here ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/15/2006 at 03:26 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • Terrorists •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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