Obama Considers Bypassing Miranda Rule
It's amazing what having 3 terrorist attacks in a year and a half will do to a President, isn't it? BTW, whatever happened to those liberals who said that the Bush Administration was exaggerating threats of terror? Remember Al Gore? "He betrayed this country! He played on our fears!" Ah, yes. The good old days when we were deceived by our Government into thinking that enhanced interrogation techniques and a strong military was a better defense than reducing missile stockpiles and world apology tours. Yet how do we go from informing enemy combatants picked up on the battlefield that they have the right to remain silent to this?
In an interview on CNN, Mr. Axelrod said Mr. Obama was “open to looking at” changing the Miranda rule, which generally bans prosecutors from using as evidence statements made by suspects in custody before they have been warned that they have a right to remain silent and to consult a lawyer. “There may be some things that have to be done,” Mr. Axelrod said. “Certainly we’re willing to talk to Congress about that. But they would be in the area of adjustments, not a wholesale revision.”
Mr. Axlerod’s comments came a day after Mr. Holder called for Congress to enact legislation that would carve out a new exception to the Miranda rule. It comes from a landmark 1966 Supreme Court decision that is intended to ensure that confessions are not coerced, consistent with the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
No, I'm not going to go all conspiratorial on you, although that would be pretty fun. I could talk about how this exception could be sold as a way to question terrorism suspects, then used against the real terrorists in the eyes of Obama and company, the tea baggers. But that's too easy. I see this for what it really is, and I like that approach better.
You see, we have in this Country what one might call Interrogation Techniques. They include the reading of ones Miranda Rights to inform a suspect of their rights before they go "on the record". In other words, one's own words cannot be used against them until they have been informed that their words will be used against them and that they have the right to consult an attorney or not talk at all. But sometimes (and I believe that I've heard this term somewhere before) we might need to... shall I say enhance those techniques when we are dealing with terrorists. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
I honestly believe that President Obama is well intentioned here. Yet I also know that he would have attacked President Bush if he had proposed the same thing. It is also important to understand that this decission will anger the left wing base. But President Obama has had to face a tough reality here. The fact of the matter is plain and simple here. Many of Obama's first actions were to overturn many of the things that Bush did to combat terrorism. He ordered the closure of GITMO. He scheduled withdrawal in Iraq. He went out of his way to tell the Muslim world that we were not at war with them. He dropped the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. And what did all of this get him? A rash of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks.
President Obama is never going to come out and say the words "Bush was right". Then again, he doesn't have to. Remember this story? If you do, you were either listening to me or the hard left, because I am the only right wing talk show host that had the courage to take this issue on at the time it presented itself.
With the addition of what is thought to be the first US citizen to the list of terrorist suspects the CIA is authorized to kill, many European commentators are beginning to question whether US President Barack Obama has really changed the US approach to the 'war on terror.'
The German Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper was particularly scathing about the perceived hypocrisy of Obama's position on human rights: "What does this say about the US president?" it asked in an editorial. "It shows how absurd the American hardliners' accusation is that he is soft on terror. But unfortunately it also shows that Obama is a long way from fulfilling the hopes that human rights activists have placed in him."
Yes, it seems that the President who was opposed to waterboarding terrorism suspects has no problem bombing them. And the same man who opposed detention of U.S. Citizens in a military detention center after they were picked up on the battlefield has no problem ordering their execution before they are picked up. Warterboarding? Heck no. Execution? Sure thing. So we should be surprised, right? Wrong answer.
As I said all along, President Obama's decisions would make us more vulnerable to terrorists, not less. In seven years of Bush's policies we had the one attempted attack by Richard Reid. In less than a year and a half, we have seen one successful and two tried but failed terrorist attacks. The bottom line is this. President Obama now knows what I knew all along. The Bush policies worked. They weren't pretty, but they kept us safe.
Now, as President Obama scrambles to find an alternative that works, it is important for him to remember that we had a working model. If he can improve on that model, great. But you don't have to say "Bush was right" Mr. President. As you can see above, European newspapers are stopping just short of saying it for you. These new policies are being perceived by the world for exactly what they are. It is a natural human reaction to over-correct when one realizes that they have lost control. Slow and steady, Mr. President... slow and steady. The Word is watching. If they didn't like GITMO and waterboarding, how do you expect them to react to drone attacks and suspended Miranda rights for your own citizens? During your campaign, you aggitated these sentiments against us. They will consume you now if you go too far.
