Coyote Gulch

Sunday, July 2, 2006

Hamdan case
Andrew Sullivan: "America is not in essence a geographical entity. When it was founded, it occupied a fraction of the land it now does. Nor is it defined by an ethnic group or a royal line. Its core is essentially a piece of paper, a written constitution, a formal set of procedures designed, before everything else, to protect individual liberty. At the heart of that liberty is the right to a fair trial and the insistence that nobody - especially not the president - can take that away.

"That constitution has been tested before. It was tested when Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the civil war. It was tested when Franklin D Roosevelt interned thousands of Japanese-American citizens in camps during the second world war. It was tested when Richard Nixon turned the presidency into a criminal conspiracy in Watergate. There was never any doubt that the war launched against the United States on September 11, 2001, would test it too. Wars do that, as Lincoln and Roosevelt demonstrate. No war by foreign enemies has implicated the American homeland as profoundly as this one."
"2008 pres"
4:47:55 PM

Clinton for president?
James Carville and Mark J. Penn (via the Washington Post): "We don't know if Hillary is going to run for president, but as advisers who have worked on the only two successful Democratic presidential campaigns in the past couple of decades, we know that if she does run, she can win that race, too.

"Why? First, because strength matters. Our problems as a party are less ideological than anatomical: Our candidates have been made to look like they have no backbone. But the latest Post-ABC News poll shows that 68 percent of Americans describe Hillary Clinton as a strong leader. That comes after years of her being in the national crossfire. People know that Hillary has strong convictions, even if they don't always agree with her. They also know that she's tough enough to handle the viciousness of a national campaign and the challenges of the presidency itself.

"One thing we know about Clinton campaigns: Nobody gets Swift Boated."

Thanks to TalkLeft for the link.
"2008 pres"
4:40:55 PM

Edwards for president?
Western Democrat: "This week, I spent a couple of days with Senator John Edwards - the once and future presidential candidate. I had a chance to ask him about the Western Democrat strategy: changing the map by contesting the inland mountain west. His answer surprised and impressed me. I asked a geographic question, and he gave me a cultural answer. To paraphrase, he argued that the lesson of the West is that authenticity and plain-speaking is critical."
"2008 pres"
4:31:51 PM