Terrorists in your backyard jails?

To listen to both Democrats and Republicans about closing Guantanamo and transferring those terrorists to U.S. jails, one would think that we were talking about supernatural aliens.

Now, I've not made a study of terrorists, but those guys who flew into the World Trade Center weren't super-human. And they didn't take down the towers with other-worldly weapons. And they could have been stopped by ordinary people.

Moreover, there are, I understand, only a couple hundred left of the "worst of the worst" - who have, it appears, been there for years. It is unlikely that they know much of anything worthwhile at this point or, for that matter, would be trusted by their former associates if they went home.

As for our jails: I know Conservatives like to complain about how we baby criminals, but most U.S. prisons today aren't much better than what could be found in Dickens' England - and some do hold prisoners who are every bit as dangerous and violent, I would suspect, as any of the prisoners at Gitmo.

If our top-security prisons are incapable of preventing terrorists from escaping and doing harm, isn't the logical follow up conclusion that maybe they are not sufficiently secure to handle our native criminals?

But, then, that has been the problem all along. Gitmo, the abandonment of habeas corpus, the military "tribunals" were all created by men who fundamentally disapprove of America's judicial system as it exists, who fundamentally still believe (in spite of conviction rates exceeding 90%) that our court system babies criminals and ignores victims, who think that the law unnecessarily hamstrings the police. Gitmo was created by people who still think the Miranda ruling was judicial activism at its worst, who don't think that the accused have a right to counsel.

Isn't it time for somebody, somewhere in the media to confront the fear-mongering and the fundamental disconnect that created Gitmo and keeps it alive?

Obama to the Left: So What Choice Do You Have

In watching Obama back away from many of his campaign promises, might the Left conclude that Obama is to the Left as Bush was to the Far Right: more lip service than action?

Yes, the Shrub did actually support a lot of the right wing agenda but, to a large extent, Republicans have never given the far right religious component of the party what it has most wanted because, of course, Republicans know that that constituency has no other place to go.

So it is with the left and Obama. Regardless of his poll numbers in 2012, he will be the Democrat's nominee. The Republican is bound to be more conservative. So Obama can break every promise he has ever made and all the Left can do is complain.

The main question, however, is about Obama's continuing tendency to cave in. Remember all those pieces of the Stimulus Package he put in to please the Republicans? For which he got zip?

Then there's health care. He never promised what Hillary did - universal coverage - but month by month his criteria for reform have shrunk until they are limited to "lowering costs" and "improving access". In short, tinker around the edges and call it reform.

Guantanamo is still open. The pictures won't be released. Military tribunals are back. (Military tribunals, for those who don't know, are designed to convict. There is no presumption of innocence.)

His justice department continues, in court, to defend Bush positions.

Torture? Let's just forget the past, shall we? Cheney feels no compunction about attacking Obama, but Obama refuses to attack the Bush administration.

Leftists may ask themselves why. We Hillary supporters know why. Obama, like Bill Clinton, seems pathologically incapable of fighting for anything. Not being a psychologist, I don't know if this is because Bill and Obama simply don't like conflict or because there is simply nothing about which they feel strongly enough to be willing to fight for it. Maybe a bit of both.

The Left wanted Obama. Now they've got him and it turns out that he is, as anybody who had checked into his political history or listened to him campaign would know, Bush Light.