Flame On: The Beginning of the End of America
October 24, 2006 by Glenn
Welcome to the first installment of Urban Monarch’s new “Flame On” series. The purpose of Flame On is to let Urbman Monarch contributors post ideas and articles that we feel should be known about, but are likely to be controversial (or downright crazy).
The topics for Flame On are chosen by the individual poster, not by an Urban Monarch consensus. Consequently, the posts don’t represent Urban Monarch’s opinions as a whole (and not even necessarily the opinions of the individual poster).
Our first post is an 8-minute segment from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. In it he discusses the consequences of the Military Commissions Act, enacted last week by President Bush.
What’s most concerning is that habeas corpus, a protection for all Americans given in the Constitution, is effectively optional for the government to uphold. This has been done in the name of defending us from enemy combatants (terrorists).
The Military Commssions Act has no expiration date, and who’s to say when the “War on Terror” will be over? (Let me take a guess: Never)
So, when do we get habeas corpus back?
I know someone with a Kitchen Aide Mixer… It’s real nice.
From the wikipedia entry.
Immediately after President Bush signed the Act into law, the Justice Department notified the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that the Court no longer had jurisdiction over a combined habeas case that it had been considering since 2004. A Justice Department notice dated the following day listed 196 other pending habeas cases for which it made the same claim.
Talking head commentators, from Olbermann to Limbaugh share several traits.
First, their ability to make eloquent, passionate pleas to our emotions using historical references, quotes, and ’statistics’ of all kinds (Abraham Lincoln, I believe, had a great quote about stats : “There are lies, damn lies and statistics”).
Secondly, their lack of any viable alternatives for dealing with the issue at hand.
Sitting back and allowing the jihadists to run rampant through our country plotting their next attack and killing Americans is not an acceptable course of action.
For all of his smirking and huffing, I didn’t hear Olberman giving any insight into how we can better deal with the threat.
Reply to cash:
You can’t just evade Obermann’s issues by saying no one has an alternative.
I have heard many alternatives and any of them are better than staying the course in Iraq.
In any case, alternatives are not the issue, it is “lies, lies and more lies”.
There is no debate on whether the president has lied, it’s on camera many times over.
And his most heinous lie is Iraq.
It is time for diplomacy.
“It is time for diplomacy” is relatively vague.
For one thing, Olberman isn’t focusing on Iraq in this clip, but rather the recent changes to the US law.
My response was simply pointing out that although it’s easy to criticize the administration’s course, it’s more difficult to lay out a viable plan that would achieve the same goals (dealing with the jihadists) using another methodology.
It’s difficult to use ‘diplomacy’ with a non-governmental group such as Islamic terrorists.