Al-Kidd Case

I don't know about you guys, but I remember clearly that there was one lesson that Watergate was supposed to has taught us above all others: that no one in the US, including the President is above the law.

Apparently either Prince Barry never learned it, or he expediently forgot it. Or maybe he was surfing in Hawaii while the rest of us were being dragged before the TV by our Middle School teachers to "see history".

Abdalluh Al-Kidd is an American convert to Islam who found himself on his way to Saudi Arabia to study Islam on September 11th 2001. He was stopped at the airport and imprisoned on the material witness statute (the arrest warrant was issued on the basis of what have now been proven to to be knowing and blatant falsehoods told to the judge by the FBI) which Ashcroft had bragged about stretching as much as he could in order to be able to more effectively round up "suspicious people".

For the next 15 days he was taken to various prisons in the US and subjected to grueling and abusive torture. After this period, he was released with no charges having been filed against him.

However, the detention caused him to lose the security clearance he needed for his job which, in turn, contributed to his divorce.

He decided to sue John Ashcroft for damages. Ashcroft sustained that as AG, he and his FBI should be immune from any responsibility for this miscarriage of justice.

The case finally arrived to the Federal Appeals court of San Francisco where Milan Smith, a Mormon and Bush appointee, and another judge, a Reagan appointee, FORCEFULLY rejected Ashcroft's claims for immunity, calling them "repugnant to the Constitution".

Naturally Obama's "liberal" AG, Holder was delighted with this attempt to restore the rule of law and hold wrongdoers accountable. Right?

Wrong of course.

Rather than leave this felicitous outcome as is, he ordered his solicitor general to take AS HIS ADMINISTRATION'S OWN CAUSE, Ashcroft's claims to immunity in the full knowledge that this would lead to a Supreme Court case in which the court (with his little hack carreerist Kagan on the sidelines because of recusal) would be likely to uphold Ashcroft's absolutely sweeping and constitutionally "repugnant" claims to immunity.

More "Liberal" change form the "liberal" Obama.

To all those people out there who have suggested that I have been precipitous in my judgement's of Obama's performance in the realm of Constitutional Rights, have you got anything to say?

Is this just another instance of how the Repubs just won't let this well-intentioned progressive get anything done? (Huh?)

Or maybe it is still just all too "complex" and/or too "early" for you to come to a decision about how he is doing.

I realize that if there is anything a well-placed member of the thinking class doesn't want to appear it is too "rash" or "judgemental". It's all about cool and nuance when you are a real "serious" person.

Historical note: the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were regularly shunted aside as crazies (with the aquiescence of important--read "cool and "well-placed--members of Argentina's intellectual class) for many years after they began protesting in public about the torture and disappearance of their children. Cool did nothing. Hot won the day.