Bush vs. Reality

"In perhaps his most striking concession, Mr Bellinger said he thought the US had failed to consult sufficiently internationally for 'several years' after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, partly because government legal advisers were so busy domestically."

Clinton on Torture

Randall Mikkelsen writes for Reuters: "Former U.S. President Bill Clinton joined a chorus of critics of Bush administration proposals for treating suspected terrorists, saying it would be unnecessary and wrong to give broad approval to torture.

"In an interview with National Public Radio aired on Thursday, Clinton said any decision to use harsh treatment in interrogating suspects should be subject to court review.

"'You don't need blanket advance approval for blanket torture,' Clinton said."

Remember Habeas

Neil A. Lewis and Kate Zernike write in the New York Times: "Although the effort has been partly obscured by the highly publicized wrangling over military commissions for war crimes trials, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress are trying to use the same legislation to strip federal courts of their authority to review the detentions of almost all terrorism suspects.

"Both the legislation introduced on behalf of the administration and the competing bill sponsored by a group of largely Republican opponents in the Senate include a provision that would bar foreigners held abroad from using the federal trial courts for challenges to detention known as habeas corpus lawsuits. If the provision was enacted, it would mean that all of the lawsuits brought in federal court by about 430 detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would be wiped from the books. . . .

"Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a sponsor of one of the bills eliminating the habeas corpus filings, said Wednesday that the flood of such lawsuits had hampered the war effort and given judges too much leeway to second-guess field commanders."

Charles Babington writes in The Washington Post that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) yesterday said that Congress "cannot act to delete the remedy of habeas corpus" and call the proposal to do so unconstitutional.

Bob Herbert writes in his New York Times opinion column (subscription required): "Habeas corpus (literally 'produce the body') is a legal proceeding that allows one to challenge his or her detention in a court of law. It is the most significant safeguard against arbitrary imprisonment. Someone deprived of this right -- which is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and has been recognized by various societies all the way back to the Middle Ages -- can be locked up, whether innocent or guilty of any offense, and never heard from again. . . .

"Talk about freedom is cheap. We hear it all the time. Real protection against tyrannical behavior by powerful government officials is another matter."

Abramoff Watch

John Solomon and Sharon Theimer write for the Associated Press that Republican activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, longtime associates of Jack Abramoff, had more than 100 appointments at the White House, according to newly released visitor logs.

Abramoff, a former GOP lobbyist, has pleaded guilty to fraud and is cooperating with prosecutors in an influence-peddling investigation.