There’s something slightly funny in the way so many right-wingers will bitch about how liberals want a “nanny state,” then turn around and demand government do everything it can to keep them safe. If shredding the Constitution, spying on everyone and locking people up without trial keep conservatives safe in their bed, hey, no problem! Just don’t let the scary terrorists get me, nanny!
We have, for example, Richard Cohen’s new column, in which he states ” There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists will be tried in military tribunals and some in civilian courts, what is missing is a firm recognition that what comes first is not the message sent to America’s critics but the message sent to Americans themselves. When, oh when, will this administration wake up?”
News flash: What comes first is the law and the Constitution. Torture is a crime, under both law and international treaty; and terrorists, like all criminals, have rights under the Constitution. By what possible concept of good government is making Richard Cohen feel safe a higher priority?
Cohen, of course, avoids the moral issue by construing it purely in terms of a message: Obama’s simply placating the wrong people (he ignores the fact that Obama has carried over a lot of Bush’s unconstitutional policies—it’s not as if Constitutional rights have been the bulwark of his administration). That way he can duck the fact that what he’s advocating is both illegal and immoral (or he may genuinely believe that such factors are irrelevant).
