Making "War-on-Terror" Sausage

Congress in action - House and Senate Republicans are racing to legalize the way the Bush administration has been handling detainees rounded up in the so-called war on terror. Making law is like making sausage. Watching the excellent debate yesterday on C-SPAN was fascinating.
Poor batch - Many, however, will be dissatisfied with the current product's seasoning. It is too heavy with the spice of accommodation to the White House, too light on the U.S. tradition of bedrock legal protections. According to the Washington Post's Charles Babbington 9/28 article headlined, "House Approves Bill on Detainees - 253 to 168 Vote Backs Bush on Prosecution Of Terrorism Suspects", from which I quote,

The House approved an administration-backed system of questioning and prosecuting terrorism suspects yesterday, setting clearer limits on CIA interrogation techniques but denying access to courts for detainees seeking to challenge their imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere. . .
Senators also began debating the measure yesterday and defeated, along party lines, a Democratic-sponsored amendment that would have expanded detainees' legal rights. Senators predicted that their chamber will approve the legislation today, which would enable Bush to hold a signing ceremony on a high-profile and intensely debated bill about a month before the Nov. 7 elections.
Barring a last-minute snag, the House and Senate action will conclude three months of debate that began in late June, after the Supreme Court struck down the military commissions Bush had established to try people suspected of being members of al-Qaeda.

Unfinished batch - But the spicy-hot "Spy on Americans" legislative sausage will likely still be in the mixing pot when Congress goes into the Fall recess tomorrow. Thus the outcome of current Congress' effort will likely depend on the outcome of the Fall elections. The nation will be able to consider itself lucky if the stomach wrenching batch of Bush's surveillance sausage does not pass the People's Inspection- election. The Washington Post covered the story with a headline that reads,
"No Compromise On Wiretap Bill-Focus Now on House Version, By Jonathan Weisman & Carol D. Leonnig-Wednesday, September 27, 2006." Quoting from the story,

A high-profile Republican effort to clarify the legality of President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program will almost certainly not pass before Congress recesses at week's end for the fall campaign, leaving the legislation in deep trouble, congressional leaders conceded yesterday.
Efforts to reach agreement on a single version of the bill that could be brought before the Senate and House this week foundered yesterday on the insistence of key House members that they vote on a House version that they say is significantly tougher than the Senate's. House Republican leaders are deferring to the House bill's primary author, Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.), who is locked in one of the tightest House election contests of the season.
. . . Bills to authorize warrantless wiretapping and military commissions were supposed to pass this month as the twin centerpieces of a legislative agenda designed to bolster the party's national security credentials. But the surveillance bill was in trouble from the start.

Looking over the government's shoulder - There is cautious optimism amongst Progressives about the possibility of rebalancing our nation's three-branch governance. We are more hopeful when the sausage makers are unable to totally agree with the Bush administration. The recipe for keeping America safe must contain a well balanced variety of ingredients, including national and international intelligence, civil liberty protections, the rule of law and congressional oversight on behalf of the people. Watching it being made is not pleasant, it is messy. But we must watch the process. If we turn our backs in disgust, we will be fed the stuff of national disintegration. Put your goggles and nose plugs on and join the factory tour.

Tags: Bush security terrorism current affairs news news and politics politics Congress

My "creative post" today at Southwest Blogger is about fall foliage.