You gotta love the eternal mystery of Ken Salazar's mind - always keeping his supporters
and foes guessing. I asked Salazar's office for his stance on the current "Military Tribunal" law that -
- gives the Executive far more dictatorial powers to detain, prosecute, judge and punish than it ever enjoyed before;
- has been modified in the last 48 hours in a hundred different ways to increase executive power at the expense of judicial review, due process, and oversight; and
- creates outrageous provisions on torture, definition of enemy combatants, secret procedures, and habeas stripping, that are completely unnecessary to keep Americans safe.
He hasn't "issued a statement yet." Well, duh, that's why I asked.
So once again we have no answer from Ken on a critical issue being debated in the Senate. We only have questions, and concerns, about what he will do regarding a
CYA law that has been denounced by military, legal, constitutional, and
human rights experts from every part of the political spectrum:
- Will Ken Salazar listen to longtime, experienced Senators like Leahy, Specter, Kennedy, Kerry, Levin and Feingold who have denounced this destructive bill?
- Will Ken Salazar play it safe (for him) with this issue and use the DLC/Centrist "compromise all/get nothing" tactic that his pal Joe Lieberman has used so often?
- Will Ken Salazar get stampeded by Republican leadership into another bad bill written on short notice and rammed through just prior to an election?
- Will Ken Salazar give this President sole discretion over the fate of our detainees when the President has time and again proven incapable of making sound decisions in this important area?
- Will Ken Salazar Vote for Torture and Retroactive Amnesty for Bush's Illegal Interrogation Orders?
- Will he dare take a stand at all until it comes time to vote?
His deafening silence on this issue, as the President and his cronies once again attack our country's founding democratic principles, leaves nothing but doubt about the Senator's commitment to the very ideas our nation was founded upon.
(Crossposted at SquareState.)