Obama '08?

Thomas wrote:

Did Martin Luther King have a problem with very left-wing people? Do Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? I would have said they are getting the least flak from left-wingers. So why should it be different for Obama?

I can't speak for left-wingers in general, but I think both of these men push a lot of buttons on both side of the bird.

I don't think this has been orchestrated at all - I think the Obama wave took everyone by suprise. Especially the Clinton Democrats. There may be those jumping on, trying to capitalize now, but the momentum came straight from Obama.

Mr. President, I am proud to be sponsoring this amendment with the senior senator from West Virginia. He's absolutely right that Congress has abrogated its oversight responsibilities, and one way to reverse that troubling trend is to adopt a sunset provision in this bill. We did that in the Patriot Act, and that allowed us to make important revisions to the bill that reflected our experience about what worked and didn't work during the previous 5 years. We should do that again with this important piece of legislation.

But I want to take a few minutes to speak more broadly about the bill before us.

I may have only been in this body for a short while, but I am not naive to the political considerations that go along with many of the decisions we make here. I realize that soon, we will adjourn for the fall, and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be criticized as caring more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans. And I know that the vote before us was specifically designed and timed to add more fuel to that fire.

And yet, while I know all of this, I'm still disappointed. Because what we're doing here today - a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused - should be bigger than politics. This is serious.

If this was a debate with obvious ideological differences - heartfelt convictions that couldn't be settled by compromise - I would understand. But it's not.

All of us - Democrats and Republicans - want to do whatever it takes to track down terrorists and bring them to justice as swiftly as possible. All of us want to give our President every tool necessary to do this. And all of us were willing to do that in this bill. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to the American people.

In the five years that the President's system of military tribunals has existed, not one terrorist has been tried. Not one has been convicted. And in the end, the Supreme Court of the United found the whole thing unconstitutional, which is why we're here today.

We could have fixed all of this in a way that allows us to detain and interrogate and try suspected terrorists while still protecting the accidentally accused from spending their lives locked away in Guantanamo Bay. Easily. This was not an either-or question.

Instead of allowing this President - or any President - to decide what does and does not constitute torture, we could have left the definition up to our own laws and to the Geneva Conventions, as we would have if we passed the bill that the Armed Services committee originally offered.

Instead of detainees arriving at Guantanamo and facing a Combatant Status Review Tribunal that allows them no real chance to prove their innocence with evidence or a lawyer, we could have developed a real military system of justice that would sort out the suspected terrorists from the accidentally accused.

And instead of not just suspending, but eliminating, the right of habeas corpus - the seven century-old right of individuals to challenge the terms of their own detention, we could have given the accused one chance - one single chance - to ask the government why they are being held and what they are being charged with.

I think he began considering it seriously because of the responses he was getting in his non-stop criss-crossing of the country over the last 6 months.

Obama: The senator with the Midas touch
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
DENNIS CONRAD

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama has shown a Midas touch in so many different ways that it's easy to forget he's just another new senator.

In the past year, the freshman from Illinois has become a best-selling author, a millionaire, a Grammy Award winner and an important fundraiser for Democrats.

Altogether, Obama has helped raise $6.5 million for his political action committee and other Democratic candidates, party committees and state parties, as he crisscrosses the country from New Jersey to Virginia to Florida.

He brought in about $800,000 with an e-mail message sent out on MoveOn.org on behalf of Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., who at age 88 is seeking a ninth term in office.

"He said some nice things about me," Byrd recalled. "Anywhere he comes in West Virginia we will give the man a great reception. He's a wonderful man."

Some of Obama's fundraising activities are part of his job as a vice chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

"These are trips not initiated by me; these are trips that other people think will be helpful," Obama said, noting he has family and political obligations in Illinois. "For every invitation I've accepted, I've turned down 100."

His office fields more than 300 requests a week for appearances. One Senate Democrat, curious about Obama's charisma, took notes when watching him perform at a recent political event. State parties report breaking fundraising records when Obama is the speaker.

The money he is bringing in for fellow Democrats is shaping up as an important influence on 2006.