Left, Right, and Centered

It Goes Without Saying Whose Decision It Really Is February 4, 2010

Andy McCarthy from NRO:

the main problem with Obama’s above-it-all, government-by-speeches approach, is that the job of a president is not to vote present, observe, and provide us with running commentary. He’s not the play-by-play announcer of a game between arch rivals. He is the main participant on one of the teams, who actually has to make decisions. If he doesn’t affirmatively make them, he makes them by default — meaning, the system’s routine processes will carry on.
I’ll have more to say in a column about yesterday’s letter by Attorney General Holder to Sen. Mitch McConnell regarding the Christmas bomber case. But the AG’s position is basically: these are our procedures (arrest, Miranda, appointment of counsel, civilian indictment, etc.) and we followed them. Obama would like you to believe that he is captive to these procedures, but he’s in charge and he can change them — as Lincoln did, FDR did, and Bush did, to name a few.
I’m not a Holder fan, but I give him credit for this: He really does believe prosecution in the civilian justice system is the way to go, even in cases involving alien enemy combatants sent by al Qaeda to the United States to carry out acts of war during wartime. Vice President Cheney, to the contrary, really believed (and believes) that this law-enforcement orientation doesn’t work against wartime enemies, that it thus endangers the country, and that we have to treat a war like a war, with indefinite detention fo enemy-combatants and military commissions for war criminals. Holder and Cheney have defended their positiions vigorously. As my column will elaborate, I don’t think Holder’ defense is very persuasive, but at least he’s making it. These guys are willing to be accountable for their positions.
Then there’s Obama — you know, the guy who actually has decision-making authority. (In the executive branch, all the power is reposed in the president. Everyone else, including the vice president and the attorney general, is just carrying our his policies.) What do we get from our president? We get his already tired routine: Some people say our criminal justice system is not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists. Others say you must give every arrested person Miranda rights and treat them just like shoplifters. I reject this false choice between terrorism and shoplifting.
Well, no, big guy, it’s not a false choice. But it is a choice, it has to be made, and you have to make it. If you’re going to use our criminal justice system because you think, as is, it is capable of safeguarding the country from terrorists, then, as the Attorney General argues, you have to give the terrorists Miranda warnings and be accountable for the fact that you will lose at least five weeks of actionable intel against people who are tying to kill us. If you think the justice system doesn’t work for this class of offenders, then you have to try another approach, as VP Cheney urges, and be prepared for the inevitability of caterwauling from the Left (knowing it will be considerably milder than what Cheney had to deal with). But one way or the other, you’ve got to decide. And if you choose to stay on the golf course while the Attorney General handles it, that is a decision to do it the Attorney General’s way. Obama’s decision, not Holder’s.