Mr. Reding, you are one of the best bloggers in the state but this post caught me off guard:
Yes, Governor, it does matter whether terrorists are held at GTMO or Fort Levenworth, as Sen. Thompson pointed out. If you hold an alien national in the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, they have habeas rights under the Constitution. That’s why we don’t hold them there.
If you think it doesn’t matter, does that mean that you endorse Justice Kennedy’s position on the detainee issue? If so, on what grounds? Are you going to kowtow to a poorly-written and excessively legalistic argument?
...
Sorry, governor, you are wrong on the law. That’s why you went to Ouchita Baptist University and not Harvard or NYU.
Are you actually suggesting a law degree as a pre-requisite to be president? Do you deny all other displines except the one to which you belong?
6 comments:
I'm pretty sure it's a lawyer thing.
Yes, it's a lawyer thing...
You certainly don't have to be a lawyer to be President, and some of our best Presidents haven't been lawyers. However, you need a basic literacy on important legal issues, and the fact that Gov. Huckabee thinks that there's isn't a difference whether we hold prisoners inside the US or at GTMO shows that he doesn't understand the issue. Given that the next President will probably be filling some Supreme Court vacancies, it's crucial that the next President at the very least understand what the big legal issues are and why they're important.
Thanks for stopping by Jay,
Your comments in the post I quoted came off as elitist, which is the primary reason I objected to them.
Yes, it probably is helpful to be a lawyer to understand complex legal issues, but some of us are more interested in policy matters that are not matters of lawyerly discourse.
I think Huckabee would pick SCOTUS candidates no worse than the lawyers Ford and Clinton.
"If you hold an alien national in the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, they have habeas rights under the Constitution."
I believe our naval base at Guantanamo Bay IS under "US jurisdiction", and the detainees there should probably be transferred to some facility overseas, perhaps in Afghanistan.
Gitmo is not exactly the "gulag of our times", but it probably should be closed.
That said, I can't vouch for the quality of Ouchita Baptist University, but it can't be much worse than a flimsy, post-modern "education" at some ivy league school on the Left coast.
I don't see "Knowledge of legal limits of Habeus Corpus rights as it pertains to US territories and posessions" being high up on my list of "Crap the President Needs to Know."
Just ask "Would Reagan Know?"
Now this is definitely a lawyer thing: "©2008 Jay Reding. Licensed Under A Creative Commons License
Powered by WordPress | Made On A Mac | Valid XHTML and CSS
The views expressed on this site are those of their authors and do not represent the views of any third parties. Nothing on this site should be construed to be providing financial or legal advice."
Post a Comment