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Republican Congressman Calls for Gonzales to Go

Nebraska Republican Rep. Lee Terry calls for the resignation of Alberto Gonzales. “I trusted him before, but I can't now,” says Terry.

Steinmeier “out of the Woods”

German Foreign Minister and Schröder-protégé Frank-Walter Steinmeier has survived a crisis of confidence surrounding his handling of the case of Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turkish citizen who spent four years in Guantánamo before securing his freedom. A parliamentary inquiry had pointed to the deep involvement of former Chancellor Schröder and his chief of staff, Steinmeier, in the affair, in which Kurnaz was turned over to the United States and dragged off to Guantánamo even though the German government had substantial information from the outset indicating that he was the innocent victim of a case of mistaken identity. For weeks there was intense speculation that Steinmeier would be forced to resign. Now, in the assessment of Spiegel, Steinmeier has weathered the crisis. Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

his statement could be summarized in one sentence: I would do the same again today . . . The best argument for the red-green policy against terror remains its result: The fact that, unlike many other countries, Germany has so far escaped any attacks. Nevertheless those who make good policies are not immune to mistakes or mistaken judgments. The fact that an innocent man sat in Guantanamo for four years is still objectively unjust. And such an ordeal cannot be justified by the initial suspicion that Kurnaz was a 'threat.'

“Is tyranny really so bad?”

That might be the mantra of some of the new Bush-era Republicans, if we are to judge them on the basis of a recent report by National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru. He reports that a simple question was put to two leading GOP presidential candidates–Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani–as to whether it would be right for the president to detain U.S. citizens without any review in the courts. The question presents the essence of tyrannical government, which may be defined as giving one person the unreviewable power to imprison.

The answers? Romney said he would want to speak with some “smart lawyers” before answering. But Giuliani said, “yes,” but promised to make sparing use of the power.

At Salon, Glenn Greenwald had a field day:

Ponnuru's report must be viewed in its context–the context being that the hero and icon of the Republican Party over the last six years has, in fact, imprisoned U.S. citizens and insisted that he has the power to throw Americans into black holes indefinitely with no charges or review of any kind.

That is the modern Republican Party. Its base, its ruling factions, simply do not believe in our most basic Constitutional guarantees. For anyone who wants to dispute that, how is it possible to reconcile the above with any claim to the contrary.

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan sums it up:

I never thought I'd read a post like this in America in my lifetime. Isn't this power of a sovereign to detain any citizen without charge at any time part of the reason this country was founded? And now it is simply assumed that this kind of monarchical power is fine. A country that grants its executive the power to do this is definitionally not a free country. It really is as simple as that.