Decision ‘08

One Of The Best Takes On Hamdan…

…comes, not surprisingly, from our good friend Tom Maguire:

…[I]s this decision a great day for democracy? Well, I suppose so, especially since Bush did not put troops in the capitol or arrest the Supremes.

But I have never thought Bush was on a path to an imperial Presidency; I have believed that Congress was ducking its responsibility to involve itself in these national security issue becasue they are not an accountability-seeking institution. It is far more comfortable for Congress to duck issues and second-guess Bush’s mistakes than actually be on the hook for a decision. But they have not lacked the institutional power to oppose the President; what they have lacked is the will.

And now the Supreme Court has forced them to do their job. Fine.

That lack of will on the part of the Congress is probably an area both conservatives and liberals can agree on; any regulars know I’m no fan of the job this Republican-controlled Congress has done in general…

2 Responses to “One Of The Best Takes On Hamdan…”

1 mtl Says:
July 1st, 2006 at 3:05 pm
The excitement over on the left is something to behold, but it also points to why they cannot obtain a majority on issues of Terrorism.

AL goes to bed everynite, worried that he’ll wake up and W will have taken away more of his liberty. To this end he will focus his intellect on proving that W is indeed eroding into the very ‘fabric of our nation’. Sleep well, carry on the fight, it’ll be over in 2.3 years. Death from terrorism is a secondary concern, and by focusing on his greatest fear, he choses to ignore everything else.

John Q goes to bed at night, worried that terrorism in the world is escalating and has little doubt that future attempts will be made to victimize America. He cannot sleep as well as AL, becuase the threat dooesn’t end in 2.3 years, it elevates and escalates with each passing year. john Q hear’s that the president has been ‘over-zealous’ but when he weighs his options, he figures out who his enemy is. Not the same one as AL.

AL, in his myopic focus on W, cannot not read public sentiment, and by focusing his effort on W, appears to be less concerned with Terrorism.

I’m a pragmatist. I worry about the long and eventual, rahter than the brief and insignificant.
2 dmac Says:
July 1st, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Mark, take a look at this one:

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/06/30/travel/escapes/30michaels.html

I mean, what the hell…