
 |
|
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
May 14, 2008
/ 9 Iyar 5768 5768
Which McCain would be president?
By
Nat Hentoff
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
As the no-holds-barred battle for the Democratic presidential nomination mercifully nears an end, renewed attention is being focused on the several John McCains bearing the Republican armor. Having written that I cannot vote for Barack Obama because he is an extremist on abortion who refused to even save a sudden live baby resulting from a botched abortion, I also have concerns about the consistency of some of McCain's positions.
The First Amendment being the foundation of our constitutional self-government, I recall McCain's comment about the McCain-Feingold "clean elections" law that directly and significantly silences the opinions of a range of advocacy groups at crucial points during presidential campaigns.
In the March 26 New York Times, Matt Welch, a former Los Angeles Times editor, quoted McCain: "I would rather have a clean government than one, where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt." The straight-talk express rides over free speech.
As the torrent of money on both sides of the current presidential race makes clear through large loopholes in that law presidential politics is far from cleaner, even as the First Amendment is now seriously diminished.
Also, as noted in the April 7 Newsweek, McCain pledges his election will mean a return to what Thomas Jefferson insisted is essential to our reputation in the world: "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."
What has severely eroded the worldwide respect for us, including the respect of some of our primary allies against the homicidal terrorists, are the CIA's "renditions." CIA agents kidnapped terrorism suspects off the streets of Italy and other countries and "rendered" them to such nations as Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, known for torturing their prisoners, thereby extracting information that not even the CIA, with its "special powers," could get.
These renditions have been valuable propaganda and recruiting tools for Al Qaeda and other terrorists. Also helpful to our enemies are the CIA's secret prisons in various parts of the world, where "enhanced interrogation techniques," as President Bush approvingly calls them, are practiced, including waterboarding (during which the suspect is made to believe he is immediately about to drown unless he opens up to his torturers).
McCain has won much approbation here and around the world as an insistent opponent of the United States torturing prisoners. But recently, when both the Senate and the House passed an amendment to an appropriations bill requiring that the Army Field Manual forbidding torture be expanded to include the CIA among all the other nontorturing branches of the services, McCain voted against it. And the president vetoed the legislation with support from McCain.
McCain's willingness, as he has stated, to insulate the CIA from the International Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment that it has so often violated may connect to his admiration for Dick Cheney, a key protector of the CIA's methods. As quoted in Matt Welch's "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), McCain says Cheney is "as capable and sensible a public servant as I've known" (page 149).
My deepest concern about McCain is whether, as our next president, he will recognize his enormous responsibility to restore the Constitution's separation of powers. In both parties, also including many independents, there is a stark realization that the Bush administration has expanded unilateral presidential powers more radically than any other in American history.
However, whatever can be accomplished to restore that core of the Constitution by the next president's leadership and congressional legislation can be blocked by the Supreme Court. On May 6, McCain, noting that Bush's successor may have two (or more) vacancies to fill on the Supreme Court, proudly disclosed that the models for his nominees would be the present chief justice, John Roberts, and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. (He has previously added William Rehnquist.)
Roberts and Alito have shown hardly any concern for the Bush administration's extrajudicial and often covert disregard for the Constitution's checks and balances on the ever-growing surveillance and databasing of Americans and the brazen disregard of the most elemental due process at Guantanamo Bay, including the often brutal conditions of confinement. There are likely to be no trials there until the next administration.
The Bush legacy includes so much more contempt for the rule of law, from which the Constitution has to be rescued. We now know, for instance, that the telephones of American civilian attorneys representing Gitmo prisoners are bugged by the Justice Department! McCain has often emphasized protecting the values of "who we are as Americans."
Those values are in the oath he will take if he becomes president. After being sworn in, will he write a classified signing statement reserving his sole right to reinterpret that oath?
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights and author of several books, including his current work, "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance". Comment by clicking here.
Nat Hentoff Archives
© 2006, NEA
| |

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|