Having often criticized the junior senator from New York for her tepid and too rare responses to Bush administration attacks on the Constitution?s “sacred fire of liberty,” I must credit her now for a Sept. 28 speech on the floor of the Senate.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, speaking of the June Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld which forced Congress to pretend to correct Bush?s unconstitutional military commissions at Guantanamo, and his five-year violations of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of our prisoners anywhere in the world, said of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, since passed by House and Senate, that “it allows a discredited policy … to be largely continued and to be made worse.”
For example, Clinton continued, “the bill before us allows the admission of evidence [against prisoners] of statements derived through cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation. This sets a dangerous precedent that will endanger our own men and women in uniform overseas.”
She then gave the senators a history lesson that may well have been new to them, and to most Americans, in view of the steady disappearance of courses in American history throughout our school systems. Between the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the Constitution in 1787, New York and Long Island were captured by the British. George Washington and the Continental Army retreated to Pennsylvania, with huge casualties, and crossed the Delaware. In a pivotal victory at Trenton, Washington captured more than 1,000 foreign mercenaries.
“The British,” Sen. Clinton added, “had already committed atrocities against American prisoners, including torture. …There are accounts of injured soldiers who surrendered being murdered; countless Americans dying in prison hulks in New York harbor … and other acts of inhumanity perpetrated against Americans confined to churches in New York City.”
What were Gen. Washington?s orders on the treatment of thousands of new prisoners and other British soldiers captured? As reported by Clinton, Washington commanded: “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren.”
The senator from New York then turned to today?s commander in chief, George W. Bush: “This military commissions bill undermines the Geneva Conventions by allowing the president to issue executive orders to redefine what are permissible interrogation techniques. Have we fallen so low as to debate how much torture we are willing to stomach?
“By allowing this administration to further stretch the definition of what is and is not torture, we lower our moral standards to those whom we despise, undermine the values of our flag wherever it flies, put our troops in danger, and jeopardize our moral strength in a conflict that cannot be won simply with military might.”
After George Washington, who turned down an invitation to be king, no president has overreached as far as George W. Bush. And now, in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Congress has overturned the restrictions on his power imposed on him by the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, as well as in the Court?s 2004 ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, when Justice Sandra Day O?Connor declared: “We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of American citizens.”
In the Military Commissions Act, Congress has given Bush a sheath of blank checks. And if there?s another 9/11, will Congress rush to give whomever then is president what isleft of the Constitution? Even if the Democrats by then control the Congress and White House?
In her admirably blunt speech, Hillary Clinton did not, however, call for a filibuster of the Military Commissions Act. The midterm elections are looming, and Senate Democrats were afraid that the dread Karl Rove machine would skewer them as unpatriotic. So this bill, with 32 Democrats voting against it, including Clinton, passed.
If Sen. Clinton does ascend to the Oval Office, I hope many George Washington-style patriots will send her copies of her Sept. 28 speech.
Nat Hentoff writes a weekly column for the Village Voice and writes about music for The Wall Street Journal.
