So the Justices on the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over the detentions of Hamdi and Padilla yesterday. For those of you who don’t know who these people are, you can read Dahlia Lithwick’s amazing summary of the case and oral arguments here. The short version is that the two men are American citizens who have been held for the last 2 years, as enemy combatants, without any charges being brought against them. The government holds that the President has the power to hold them forever without ever charging them. The petitioners, plus an alliance of every group even vaguely concerned with civil rights has said that that dog just won’t hunt. In fact, go read the link as Dahlia has said most of what I want to say, and far more eloquently.

Now, I always feel that when you have the right-wing Cato Institute and the People for the American Way on the same side of an issue, not to mention Amnesty International, then whoever’s against them is probably on the wrong side. But more than that, I do feel that this may well be the most important case to be brought before the court in years.

Many of the greatest abuses of justice have occured when goverments, out of the purest of motives, have curtailed fundamental civil rights. We saw the internment of thousands of American citizens during World War II based simply on the fact that they were of Japanese descent. That was wrong then, and I can only pray that the Justices will not rule that it is correct now.

But I do know that the court is traditionally very bad at protecting civil rights during times of crisis. And I fear.

President Bush’s campaign is now attacking John
Kerry for throwing away some of his medals to
protest the Vietnam War. Bush did not have any
medals to throw away; in his defense, he did have
all his service records thrown out. -Jay Leno

Well, the dust has settled now, and Arlen Specter has pulled out a win, though by far tighter margin than he enjoyed when last I posted.

Specter edged out Toomey 51% to 49%, by 16,641 votes out of just over million votes cast. A much closer race than anyone could envisage a month ago, and one he won in large part because of the strong support of Bush and Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania’s far right Senator.

Analysts say that the Specter win will be a big help for Bush winning the Pennsylvania (a key swing state) come November. For more analysis we go to the Daily Kos:

The result was a victory for Bush and Santorum, both who pushed hard for Specter. It was also a victory for the Bush campaign’s GOTV operation, which enjoyed a test drive on behalf of the incumbent senator.

It was a loss for the GOP’s conservative establishment, which campaigned energetically for Toomey, as well as the Club for Growth, which spent $2 million hoping to turn a Toomey victory into a club to wield against other “moderate” Republicans who strayed from the Club’s orthodoxy.

It was also a victory for SurveyUSA, which had the best polling on the race (something they do with regularity).

And, in my estimation, it’s a victory for Joe Hoeffel, who now gets to face a bloodied and poorer sitting senator representing a bitterly divided party (the latest Q-poll indicated that 48 percent of Toomey voters would not vote for Specter in the general). This is the result I hoped for, now I hope Joe Hoeffel can take advantage of the situation and finish off the work Toomey started.

I’m not sure I agree with Kos. Arlen Specter enjoys great support across party lines, he picked up a large percentgae of the Democrat vote in ’98, and this election and last has benefitted from monies from more liberal sources, including George Soros.

That said, his turnout was far weaker than expected, there are a fair number of Toomey voters who have said that they will simply not vote for Specter come November, and he runs the chance of being Nadered by a Right-Wing third party Candidate (the Constitution Party’s Clymer).

But I think at best it’s a tough uphill battle for Hoffel.

http://gadflyer.com/articles/index.php?ArticleID=83

Thank god my money is being spent on this huge waste of time, resources, the justice system.

As the day continues, Pennsylvania polling stations are showing a very low turnout despite the good weather. This could be very bad news for Specter, to quote Mark Dion, Toomey’s Campaign Manager:

“I think that our voters are enthusiastic and are going to turn out no matter what, I would assume that those showing up are there to vote for Toomey.”

Joe Hoffel, the presumptive Democratic nominee has stated that he predicts a Toomey win today.

“I think that he’s [Toomey] got all the momentum and all the energy,” Hoeffel said. “Arlen hasn’t been above 50 [percent] for along long time.”

Another Update

It’s 10:50 PM and with 55% reporting it looks like Specter leads Toomey 59% to 41%, so while it’s not quite over it looks like the radical right will have been handed a defeat today. More in the morning, when the dust clears.

No, that title is not sarcastic in tone or ironic in being. While I disagree with them on a number of issues, there are a number of Republicans I feel I can have a reasonable conversation with that won’t devolve into a shouting match. Among these people is Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania who, as Julian already mentioned, is fighting for his political life today.
(more…)

FactCheck.org A Non-partisan, not for profit, political “Consumer Advocate” who’s sole purpose is to reduce the ammount of dishonesty in politics by monitoring the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Run by the good people at the Annenberg School for Public Policy. Go Penn!

But seriously: want to know when Bush (or Kerry, or anyone else really) is lying or distorting the truth? FactCheck.org.

As everyone knows, the balance of the Senate lies on a knife’s edge, and this election cycle the Democrats actually have a decent chance to retake control.

One of the most interesting races is actually being run today in the Pennsylvania Primary between moderate Republican Arlen Specter and Far Right-Wing Republican Pat Toomey. The winner of this race will go on to face Democrat Joe Hoffel.

Now Specter is generally considered to be invincible in a general election, Toomey, on the other hand, is viewed as far more vulnerable, thoguh not necessarily an immediate pick up (Pennsylvania is the state, after all, that elected Rick Santorum). So of course the White House and the Republican leadership have expressed support for Specter and a sure seat come November. However, Toomey is gaining support with the strongly conservative base, including the far-right group ‘Club for Growth’ who considers the Centrist Specter to be a ‘fake Republican’.

This puts me, at least in an interesting position: Do I root for Toomey in this race hoping that that creates a pickup possibility in Pennsylvania, or do I root for Specter to prevent another far right wack job from entering the Senate? I mean, I actually like Specter, he’s a reasonable guy, on the other hand, I like Hoffel a whole lot more.

From Congressional Quarterly

More than Specter’s career is at stake. A Specter victory would allow him to claim the Judiciary Committee chairmanship in the 109th Congress. His defeat could further squelch the influence of GOP moderates in an increasingly partisan chamber.
A loss by Specter could also complicate the Republicans’ effort to hold the seat in this year’s competitive battle for party control of the Senate: Pennsylvania is a swing-voting state that favored Democrats Al Gore for president in 2000 and Edward G. Rendell for governor in 2002.

Thoughts?

While I don’t agree with his basic stance — I, for one, am fully behind Kerry, but hey, I’m a Massachusetts Democrat — I can certainly respect the sentiment that

It is beyond vital that we all overlook these minor blemishes and unpleasantries, and unite in electing John Kerry to be the next president of the United States of America.

So says the author of JohnKerryIsADouchebagButI’mVotingForHimAnyway.com.

Ah, the wonders of PhotoShop.

On the one hand, this. (Note the checked box next to “Do Not Volunteer for Overseas”.)

Then, on the other hand, we have this.

In honor of Jeff’s answering machine message, from Kargo X at the Daily Kos:

Kerry: Intelligent, mature and rich in educational background and experience, Ens Kerry is one of the finest young officers I have ever met and without question one of the most promising.

Bush: Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report.

I make nothing of it, really, but it does crack me up:

A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington, according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb&mdash” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, “No comment.”

You know, I think Chuck Hagel brings up a good point. If we really want to transform the world for the better (e.g. bringing democracy to the Middle East), we should ask all Americans to sacrifice something for such a worthy goal. For ordinary folks that means military service, and for Bush, his popularity for instituting a draft.

Mr. Bush, I know a lot of people would hate you for imposing a draft, but I’m sure it would be worth the hit your approval rating would take knowing that Iraq is on the road to self-government because of it.

The good folks at McSweeney’s are now offering their Daily Reason to Dispatch Bush. Enjoy that with your morning coffee.

(They also offer a time-tested strategy for winning the global war on terror.)

For those of you who may have missed it, Bob Woodward was on 60 Minutes over the weekend. Woodward has interviewed 75 key members of the administration, including the President himself.

In his 60 Minutes appearance, Woodward basically asserts that the President decided to go to war with Iraq just after September 11, deceived Congress, secretly appropriated funds to prepare for a war with Iraq (which may well be in violation of the Constitution, Adam?) and cut a deal with Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia to lower gas prices before the election to help him win it.

And apparently he has tapes to back it up.

It’s all here, folks.

Our fearless leader seems to be at a loss to name a mistake his administration has made. The DNC offers some suggestions.

AP Poll on Perceptions of Bush’s Tax Cuts

Hey, at least that means it’s a great time to be wealthy … or an investor. Not exactly Reagan’s “It’s morning in America” line, but maybe GWB can get some traction with it on the campaign trail.

Kennedy stood up and took responsibility for his involvement in the Bay of Pigs. Was he pilloried for it? No. Was he criticized? No. (Well, he was criticized for his brinksmanship, but not for taking responsibility for it.) What was the public’s reaction, once the initial pissing-down-the-pant-leg reaction to nearly getting nuked had died down?

They loved him for standing up and saying that he did what he had clearly done.

Bush, on the other hand, can’t even think of anything he’s done wrong since taking office. Humble, my ass.

I love Walter Cronkite. He’s incredibly old, but still in the game; you just have to respect that. Plus, he’s become a spokesperson for the InterFaith Alliance, an organization of religious Americans dedicated to promoting democratic values, defending religious liberty, challenging hatred and religious bigotry and reinvigorating informed civic participation and basically taking the fight to the Religious Right.

He also writes a column for the Denver Post; this column in particular asks some important questions about the Government of the days approach to Secrets, Lies and their place in a Democracy.