The New Republic‘s Jeffrey Rosen on Miranda rights: “The Obama administration has already gone further than George W. Bush’s administration in blurring the lines between the criminal and military justice systems. . . . Boston is the place where civil libertarians’ legitimate fears about the militarization of American criminal justice after 9/11 have come home to roost. . . .The administration . . . doesn’t only encourage the police to interrogate suspected terrorists about imminent threats; it adds that ‘the circumstances surrounding an arrest of an operational terrorist may warrant significantly more extensive public safety interrogation without Miranda warnings than would be permissible in an ordinary criminal case.’ [A 2010 Justice Department memo] stretches the idea of imminence beyond recognition.”
And, for good measure, here’s the Economist weighing in on Guantanamo: “This newspaper has condemned Guantánamo as unjust, unwise and un-American for a decade. The spectre of prisoners denied either a fair trial or the possibility of release is Orwellian. Nothing has done more to sully America’s image in the modern world. They should be tried or set free, just as terrorist suspects are in every other civilised country. Four years and three months ago, Barack Obama, in one of his first official acts as president, wrote an executive order to close the prison camp. This week he said Guantánamo ‘is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.’ And yet it goes on.”
Guantánamo’s continuing lease on life because Congress won’t let Obama close it doesn’t help make the case for an authoritarian presidency—at least not in any obvious way. But if we reset today’s Washington as a kindergarten psychodrama—something Americans love to do—the way Guantánamo fits in becomes clear. Doesn’t play well with others, editorial pages of all inclinations are concluding: likes it when other kids push him around so he can dismiss them as bullies and play with his toys all by himself, which is how he wanted it in the first place.
Article Appeared @http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2013/05/16/before-obamas-enemies-came-down-on-him-he-was-catching-it-from-his-friends