I'm at the PFIR Meltdown Conference.. I'm here to listen and think not blog, so I don't know how many posts I'll do, but there are number of high-quality bloggers here, including:
Oddly, the WiFi access in the conference is slow, but I don't know if that's here or part of today's general internet slowdown.
If you happen to be in New York city this Tuesday, you are invited to Cinewomen presention of a “mini-retrospective” of short films by my friend Eva Saks at the Pioneer Theater as part of a program called “LIFE: WILD, WOOLY & WONDERFUL.” Eva turned her back on a likely career as an academic to become an entertainment lawyer, and then turned her back on that to go to NYU film school.
Although, as many bloggers noted, the AP tried to whitewash the sudden Hilary-Clinton-like rediscovery of Bush's military pay records by saying that they “shed no new light on the future president's activities during that summer” it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that in fact they do shed light on a dark corner. Like the curious case of the dog in the nighttime, the pay records speak volumes for what they do NOT say: they lack any indication that Lt. Bush met his service obligation.
That's simple. How Lt. Bush got away with an honorable discharge anyway is much more complex. The fullest descriptions of the whole paper trail are provided by Paul Lukasiak and can be found at his AWOL Project. Mr. Lukasiak has now released part III of this saga, 'Fraud: The Secrets of Bush’s Payroll Records Revealed. It's pretty powerful stuff, but it's also complicated and set out in an over-wrought style.
The combination of complexity and pushy style mean that the major media will probably ignore it. If a story is a little technical and can't be explained in a sound bite, even most print reporters these days are reluctant to cover it, and doubly so if the person offering the data isn't either a known member of the pundit class or sounds very calm and sober. No one wants to be thought shrill, after all.
Talkleft spots a Wall St. Journal article reporting that Guantanamo Hearings May Begin Today:
Under the procedure, which went under a dry run yesterday, with military personnel playing the part of detainees, prisoners will appear before a three-man panel of senior officers. That panel will examine the dossiers assembled after hours of interrogations, give the detainees a chance to speak and then determine whether they should be set free. The advocates will be U.S. government employees, who, unlike lawyers, will not be honor-bound to serve the best interests of their client.
…
Under the current plan, three separate tribunals will hear 72 cases a week so each detainee can get a hearing within four months. Unlike traditional civilian justice, the government will have one big advantage: The burden of proving innocence will rest with the detainees. Detainees won't get lawyers, but “personal representatives,” military officials without any legal background, who will offer advice to prisoners, lay out unclassified portions of their dossiers and help inmates make their case to the tribunal.
It's hard to tell without more direct information, but from the sound of it these status hearings may well suffice to meet our Geneva Convention obligations. Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention states, “Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy,” then “such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal. “
So the decision to hold the hearings, however belatedly, is actually a positive step, despite their being so limited and despite their being held in secret. Furthermore, in my opinion, attacks on this procedure as one-sided or unfair or lacking in due process miss the point: none of those 'defects' are actually problems in a Geneva Convention status hearing. They're just par for the course. (As noted below, these same defects become serious issues if (and only if) anyone tries to argue that the fact of the status hearing obviates the need for a full habeas hearing if the tribunal classifies the detainee as an unperson 'enemy combatant'.)
The hearings could, I imagine, produce one of three outcomes in each case: 1) “Detainee is freed,” 2) “Detainee is a POW,” 3) “Other” — a category that will be primarily what the administration calls enemy combatants, but might include a finding that a person is, say, a civilian suspected of criminal activity.
The first two categories are easy. We know how to free people, we purport to know how to treat POWs, and despite various bits of speculation by the right wing, I for one do not believe that a recognized POW will get any traction in our courts, even via habeas, unless he alleges something on the order of torture (and maybe not even then until after the war is over).
The legally interesting category is the third one.
This may be one of the most cynical ploys in US politics I ever read about. And I read a lot.
New York Times, White House Helps Block Extension of Tax Cuts: The White House helped to block a Republican-brokered deal on Wednesday to extend several middle-class tax cuts, fearful of a bill that could draw Democratic votes and dilute a Republican campaign theme, Republican negotiators said
In other words, the only reason Bush & Co. support tax cuts is to use them as a wedge issue. Give them the tax cuts they ask for bipartisanly, they not only lose interest, but scupper it.
Fortunately, if recent polls are to be believed, President Lincoln was a better judge of the American character than PT Barnum.
Update: Apparently, PT Barnum may never actually have said that there's a sucker born every minute.
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