| Thursday, October 06, 2005 |
| Do the right thing |
Kudos to the Senate for passing John McCain's amendment setting Geneva Convention standards for prisoners held by the United States military. The move reaffirms the highest standards and excellence that should be, and mostly are, endemic to our armed forces. McCain has also helped himself with his base (independents) -- not that that will do him any good in the primaries... and the White House's insistence on threatening to veto a 90-9 decision just makes them look like pro-torture dullards. Who is running that shop these days, anyway? Karl Rove isn't even under indictment yet and they're already misfiring on every political front... sheesh...
By the way, here are the nine 'no' votes:
Allard (R-CO), Bond (R-MO), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Cornyn (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Roberts (R-KS), Sessions (R-AL), Stevens (R-AK)
The co-sponsors were Linsey Graham (SC), Chuck Hagel (NE), Gordon Smith (OR), Susan Collins of Maine, Lamar Alexander (TN), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Carl Levin (D-MI), John Warner of Virginia, Lincoln Chafee of RI, John Sununu of NH and, in my opinion, the Latino politician to watch in the coming years: Ken Salazar, Democrat of my former state, Colorado.
It's good to know that politicians can do the right thing once in a while. As blogger Seibuone put it to the president, the message from the Senate (at least the non-torture approving majority) was: veto it, we dare you.
Update: Not surprisingly, John McCain is coming under fire from the likes of His High-ness Limbaugh over his and other Senators "prioritizing the treatment of terrorists" over other, more "important" matters in the midst of the war on terror ("That's what you get when you have a bunch of Ivy Leaguers who think they're better than everybody else," Rush said on his radio show, apparently blissfully unaware that he just described the current president of the United States, to whom he routinely gives the full Monica... and his dad, too...) Incidently, Rush also excoriated McCain and one of his key supporters in 2000, Bill Kristol, for being the real ones to blame for the nomination of Hurricane Harriet. To whit: their pooh-poohing of the nuclear option rendered Mr. Bush powerless to set up a judicial battle royale over a Luttig or Rogers-Brown.
So in Rush's opinion, the presidency is so weak and enfeebled, the commander in chief requires vote certainty in the Senate in order to act according to his own priciples? Interesting take, Rush...
Update 2: Kudos also goes to the Israeli Supreme Court for striking down the cruel use by that country's military of Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Tags: Torture, Human Rights, Iraq, Politics, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, War, News |
posted by JReid @ 11:37 AM   |
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