Being Liberal Means Never Having to Say You Were Wrong

[Mr VJP]

Having painted George W. Bush as a torturer, a  destroyer of constitutional freedoms, and a villain from the dystopian  novel "1984," in true Orwellian fashion, Team Chosen One has arrived  full-circle at exactly the same policy positions on terrorist detainees  as the Bush administration. Specifically, the Obama administration  announced this week that military tribunals would resume, thus  implicitly conceding that Guantanamo Bay would likewise remain open for  the foreseeable future. The Leftmedia was too busy doing the drug called  Charlie Sheen to take full notice.

This decision owes to the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling  and its congressional backlash, the Military Commissions Act of 2006  that effectively relegates detainee tribunals to Gitmo. Obama's abrupt  pirouette was accompanied by not so much as a hint of admission of  miscalculation regarding the wisdom of Bush administration policies. The  Wall Street Journal summed it up best: "No one has done more to revive the reputation of Bush-era antiterror policies than the Obama Administration."

Perhaps its court "win" over terrorist Ahmed Ghailani  was a bit too much of an embarrassment for the administration to suffer  yet another public drubbing by admitting -- again -- it was wrong. Of  course, Americans now recognize Ghailani simply as the terrorist who was  acquitted of more than 224 murder counts in a dog-and-pony "showcase"  civil trial. They also remember that he was just one acquittal count shy  of walking away as a free man, notwithstanding his pivotal role in the  bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

Incredibly, however, Team Best-and-Brightest still  hasn't received the memo, reaffirming its commitment this week to  civilian trials for terrorists in the same breath it announced  resumption of military tribunals. Apparently, the liberal alternative to  admitting an error in judgment is simply to affirm the error while  simultaneously back-peddling on actual policy.

Finally, the administration also announced it will  dispense with a cornerstone of the laws of armed conflict, declaring  that the U.S. will now treat as legally binding a radical 1977 add-on to  the Geneva Conventions, a protocol rejected since the Reagan  administration. This protocol effectively erases the otherwise clear  line between lawful and unlawful enemy combatants, effectively  de-incentivizing potential enemies to follow the laws of armed conflict.  Thus, while terrorists do not respect any of the commonly  recognized international combatant rules, American soldiers will now be  forced to treat them as though they do, affording them protections they  do not deserve and ultimately putting even more American lives at risk.