Alright, it’s time to give the Senate, including a few of its Republican members, some credit. Finally, it seems, that august body, a repository of deliberative democracy, is performing its constitutionally mandated role of checker and balancer of the executive branch, that is, of Bush. There’s been an awful lot of kowtowing and rubber stamping over the past five years, with Bush using the war on terror to justify, inter alia, detainee mistreatment and torture, secret prisons, illegal eavesdropping, an assault on the free press, and the ongoing disaster that is the Iraq War.
But enough is enough, at least when it comes to tribunals and torture. CNN reports:
The Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday voted 15-9 to recommend a bill — over the objections of the Bush administration — that would authorize tribunals for terror suspects in a way that it says would protect suspects’ rights.
The bill was backed by Republican Sens. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
It differs from the administration’s proposal in two major ways: It would permit terror suspects to view classified evidence against them and does not include a proposal that critics say reinterprets a Geneva Conventions rule that prohibits cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees.
Which is quite promising, of course. What isn’t promising is that nine senators on the Committee voted against the bill, that is, with and for Bush. Checking and balancing — and standing up for basic human rights and against the brutal depravity of torture — is for the Democrats and a few Republican renegades who dare challenge the White House. The bulk of the GOP, it seems, will continue to kowtow and rubber stamp.
I have more, including a lot of links, at The Reaction — click here.