George Bush is at his very best when he gets into his comedy mode. It makes him almost seem likeable.
Today the president signed into law his bill authorizing "tough" interrogation of suspects and allowing their trial before military tribunals but which does not afford them a right to legal counsel or to challenge the very legality of their detention. This was clearly a situation that called for some levity as in these lines from President George Bush himself:
"With the bill I'm about to sign, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people will face justice." Is he talking about bin Laden? Has he got Osama? Did he finally do it? What do you think?
"It is a rare occassion when a president can sign a bill he knows will save American lives." He could've saved an awful lot of American lives, even without a bill, if he'd just stayed out of Iraq.
"Those who kill the innocent will be held to account." Sure, unless the "innocent" include the tens of thousands of Iraqis the Americans have killed. Best we leave them out of this.
Mr. Bush said his bill sends a clear message: "This nation is patient and decent and fair..." The American Civil Liberties Union thinks the bill's message is more along these lines: "The president can now.. ..indefinitely hold people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, authorize trials that can sentence people to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for habeas petitions."
I figured it out. If you just add the words "as I wanna be" after 'patient' and 'decent' and 'fair', Bush and the ACLU are both right. There, now don't you feel better?
The Achilles Heel of this bill is that it places so much arbitrary power and discretion in the judgment of a man who, for six years, has repeatedly and consistently demonstrated horribly bad judgment.
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