McCain Will NEVER Oppose His Neocon Pals

This morning the New York Times reported, “Mr. McCain (R-AZ) said on the ‘Today’ show on Friday, ‘We got what we wanted.’” You can count on this: When John McCain says “we”, he always means the Dick Cheney faction in the White House. McCain may have seemed to run counter to the most vicious, fear-mongering hate merchants in the White House. But when he sided with John Warner (R-VA) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) in their opposition to legislation proposed by the White House, which would allow interrogators to torture detainees, that was a pretense. McCain is an unscrupulous opportunist who has no problem lying with a straight face and kissing whatever ass he has to kiss. If ever a politician routinely talks out of both sides of his mouth, it is President-Wannabe Senator John McCain. And Democrats like Democrat leader Harry Reid may be hailing the compromise reached between Republicans and the White House, but of this you may be assured: the fact that the compromise is, as the New York Times deemed it, “a series of interlocking paradoxes”, is because of John McCain. According to an article by Adam Liptak in this morning’s NYT, ("Detainee Deal Comes With Contradictions"), “It (the compromise) imposes new legal standards that it forbids the courts to enforce.” Thank you, John McCain. “It would guarantee terrorist masterminds charged with war crimes an array of procedural protections. But it would bar hundreds of minor figures and people who say they are innocent bystanders from access to the courts to challenge their potentially lifelong detentions.” Thank you, John McCain. “And while there is substantial disagreement about just which harsh interrogation techniques the compromise would prohibit, there is no dispute that it would allow military prosecutors to use statements that had been obtained under harsh techniques that are now banned.” Thank you, John McCain. Eric M. Freedman, a professor at Hofstra University and the author of a book on habeas corpus said, “The only thing that was actually accomplished was that the politicians got to announce the existence of a compromise. But in fact, most of the critical issues were not resolved.” There you go. That’s the John McCain modus operandi in a nutshell. A teacher of constitutional law at Georgetown, Martin S. Lederman, said the bill continued to allow the CIA to inflict harsh treatment on detainees. "They appear to have negotiated a statutory definition of cruel treatment that doesn't cover the C.I.A. techniques," Lederman said. "And they pruport to foreclose the ability of the courts to determine whether they satisfy the Geneva obligations." The Liptak article says, “About 430 people are being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and there is no guarantee that they will ever be tried. The legislation, unchanged by the compromise, would prohibit habeas corpus challenges to these indefinite detentions.” This so-called compromise is a total sham. But, as McCain said, he (and the neocons in the Bush administration) got what they wanted. Why did the Democrats go along? Because, they say, they don’t want to appear to be “obstructionist”. And the only thing one can say to that lily-livered argument is: WHY NOT?