Obama Reserves the Right to Torture...
David Kurtz commented on the idea that Cheney could be right that Obama has reserved the right to order torture
I would respond with, of course he has this right. We all have the right to break the law; but the law also has the right to arrest us, charge us and convict us. Thomas Jefferson left a door open to a President committing a crime in the name of our nations best interest; but he believed that should a President commit such a crime he needed to stand up, admit the crime and be judged legally and in the court of public opinion.
Of course Obama can order torture if he feels like he must; but afterward Congress, the courts & the public should be able to decide if his breaking of the law should remove him from office or even further convict him of a crime. The greatest problem that I have with Bush/Cheney is that they didn't stand up and say yes we did it, here is why not judge us. No they hid it from us and then blamed the New York Times for releasing it.
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John AH, the question that was raised wasn't merely whether Obama has the ability to break the law - which you strangely describe as a "right". Rather Panetta's reference to Obama's "wartime powers" to order "enhanced interrogation techniques" raises a legitimate worry over whether Obama has the same broad conception of the inherent wars powers of the presidency that Bush had. The appeal to wartime powers is a legal defense. Does Panetta think that an act taken in war is automatically not against the law if the President does it? I hope not; but his words raise that legitimate concern.
And are we once again back to this dangerous notion that we are now in a state of permanent, yet undeclared, war against "international terrorism" or whatnot? Surely we all now understand the danger of unilateral executive branch determination that a state of war exists, and that the ordinary peacetime constitutional limits on the power of the presidency have been suspended, and replaced with much less restrictive wartime limits.
May 22, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan - I certainly agree and I should have used another word other than "right" in terms of a President breaking the law. My point was simply that Torture should be against the law even the "wartime powers" idea and if a President ever is faced with a real "ticking time bomb" situation and they feel they should break the law in order to protect us that is their call... BUT they would then be required to man up about it and face the consequences. I don't know that any of our presidents are really that ethical that they would stand up and admit that they broke a law like that; but one can hope, right?
May 22, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Constitution explicitly distinguishes rights from powers.
Obama is not explicitly reserving the right, but if there WERE such a right, he could not deny having it (besides pretending), he could at most not assert it. It would take legislation to remove the "right" (which would probably be a "power" rather than a right). If a President eschews something voluntarily, there is nothing in law to prevent him from changing his mind on that something later.
Simple.
The question is: So what? What illusion is Cheney puncturing? What is the meaning in him saying that other than mere obfuscation?
May 22, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, that is some impressive sophistry right there.
May 22, 2009 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you referring to Cheney, the blog post, or my comment which appears just above yours here?
May 23, 2009 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
The post. If I had replied to you, I would have, well, replied to you ;)
May 24, 2009 7:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just checkin'. Sometimes reply indentation gets lost due to "only human" errors or divine software glitches! Given our recent exchanges in another thread I had just enough reason to wonder...
May 24, 2009 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess David takes anything that dick Cheney says at face value.
What the hell does "reserves the right" mean? Will he do it or not>? The answer is NO.
Obama has banned the process, said it doesn't work, is a violation of our values, and makes us more unsafe. Do you need a little neon sign??
Oh, sorry, Cheney said it, so TPM runs with it.
May 22, 2009 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink