Reply #6: sad, isn't it? fortunately we are not so constrained by our ambitions [View All]

[bigtree]

Mr. White House Counsel, meet the Constitution

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/10/ED40688.DTL

Gonzalez tried to justify not just war without a congressional declaration, but also the government's decision to imprison U.S. citizens such as Jose Padilla, the alleged "dirty bomber," without charging them with a crime or allowing them a lawyer. Padilla is now in a military prison in South Carolina.

Bush needed power to make quick decisions, Gonzalez said, and Congress would take too long. Among the examples he cited was the Sept. 11 decision to close down U.S. airspace and force commercial and private planes to land or remain grounded. But that example was, to put it mildly, a reach. The person who made that decision, and who didn't need even Bush's consent to do so, was Ben Sliney, the FAA's national operations manager.

Gonzalez tried to reassure us, saying, "Condi Rice and others and I are looking out for how the president will play in history. We don't want him to look like some monster who destroyed our freedom. Trust us."
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"In an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Friday, Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, defended the {Bush tribunals], saying they would be fair. Mr. Gonzales continued with an assertion that appeared to liken the commissions to courts-martial. "The American military justice system is the finest in the world," he wrote, "with longstanding traditions of forbidding command influence on proceedings, of providing zealous advocacy by competent defense counsel and of procedural fairness." Some critics say the administration appears to be fostering the confusion to blunt criticism of the tribunals. "The confusion benefits the administration," said Eric M. Freedman, a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra University School of Law in Hempstead, N.Y. "If the government can spread the impression that the tribunals are like the courts- martial, that would allay many fears." In the battle of perception, both sides have been making statements that may not be accurate. Critics have said tribunals will conduct "secret trials." Mr. Gonzalez wrote that the commissions "will be as open as possible," though the president's order permits closed proceedings. --NYT.

http://www.bushwatch.com/bushlies.june.htm (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/02/national/02TRIB.html)
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