In 05 Obama tried to fix the Patriot Act; Hillary stopped him by voting with the GOP
Mon Mar 03, 2008 at 06:43:26 PM PDT
There is a wide-spread belief fueled by a lazy media that Obama and Hillary are so close on so many issues that policy-wise it really doesn't matter which one gets elected. But there ARE significant policy differences between them and they DO matter. For example
In an op-ed that ran in Sunday's New York Times Author and Law Professor Jeffery Rosen recounts a moment in 2005 when they stood Poles apart on restoring our lost civil liberties. Obama was for it and Hillary, inexplicably was agin' it
In the Senate, Mr. Obama distinguished himself by making civil liberties one of his legislative priorities. He co-sponsored a bipartisan reform bill that would have cured the worst excesses of the Patriot Act by meaningfully tightening the standards for warrantless surveillance. Once again, he helped encourage a coalition of civil-libertarian liberals and libertarian conservatives. The effort failed when Hillary Clinton joined 13 other Democrats in supporting a Republican motion to cut off debate on amendments to the Patriot Act.
So again they were similar in that they were both part of bi-partisan coalitions, it's just that one was standing for the side of good and right, and the other helped buttress the "evil empire". But other than that....
In all seriousness though, this to me is huge, The candidates have vastly different track records on caring about Civil liberties. Compare and contrast our two candidate's on this:
Obama, a Constitutional Law professor by training, seems to really care about civil rights going back to his Days in the Illinois legislature:
Mr. Obama made his name in the Illinois Legislature by championing historic civil liberties reforms, like the mandatory recording of all interrogations and confessions in capital cases. Although prosecutors, the police, the Democratic governor and even some death penalty advocates were initially opposed to the bill, Mr. Obama won them over. The reform passed unanimously, and it has been adopted by four other states and the District of Columbia.
As someone who once got to student-practice Criminal Law in Chicago, in particular four capital cases I cannot tell you how HUGE a victory this seemingly simple thing was or how ferocious the opposition was.
The powers that be from the Police, to the prosecutors, to even a majority f the criminal judiciary fought this bill tooth and nail.
Keep in mind they were fighting this even AFTER it came to light that in the period from 1980-2203 Illinois had executed 13 men; and that 13 more had been exonerated while on death row and set free. and AFTER a civil trial revealed that Chicago Police captain John Burge kept a torture chamber in his precinct house in Area 2 and had beaten confessions out of several of those death row inmates there. None of that made a dent really. While then governor and future felon Gov Ryan did institute a temporary moratorium on executions; there was absolutely no poltical will anywhere to "drain the swamp" and prevent furute abuses (hell even getting re-trials for Burge's victims was a hard slog).
In Spite of all this opposition, Obama put all his political capital line to force a bill through that while it undoubtedly advanced justice; had no natural constituency and in fact opened him up to "soft on crime" attacks by future political opponents and opposition advocacy ads from the FOP and others. That's an impressive moment of political and personal courage in my book.
NOw let's contract that with Hillary's record (* and since I'm being fair-minded we'll exclude her husband's excreable record on this issue, even though she claims his years in office as part of her record). Her Major Civil Liberties accomplishments were:
and then we have this 05 episode where she went out of her way and made common cause witht he Republicans to take away our rights.
To me, what makes this switch so egregious is that I doubt it stemmed from any deep-held conviction on the part of Hillary as to the desirability and legality of allowing government eavesdropping without a warrant. Instead I think it was part of larger bit of political calculation, as to how Centrist and "strong" on national security it would make her appear. If fact is seems part and parcel of a larger tack to center that appeared to be , dare I say?, an attempt at "triangulation" by a Senator that was already looking forward to November of 08:
That wasn’t the first time Mrs. Clinton tacked to the center in a civil-liberties debate. In 2005, she co-sponsored a bill that would have made it a federal crime to intimidate someone by burning a flag, even though the Supreme Court had struck down similar laws in the past. (Mr. Obama supported a narrower bill that would have satisfied the Constitution.)
And Mrs. Clinton opposed a moderate proposal by the United States Sentencing Commission that would have retroactively reduced the draconian penalties for possession of crack cocaine — a proposal supported by Mr. Obama, and by liberal as well as conservative judges.
You don't need to be a schnauzer to hear the "dog-whistling" going on there: Anti-flag burning (however it was dressed up)? Tough on Crime? Hell, she was so perfectly traingulated she was even all set to be the front-runner in the Republican Primary too.
Now to be fair Senator-Candidate Clinton has SAID some of the right things about privacy and civil rights:
She has called for the resurrection of a federal "privacy czar" who would balance the privacy costs and benefits of regulations.
She made an eloquent speech in the Senate opposing the suspension of habeas corpus. And she has emphasized the importance of Congressional oversight of executive power
But then someone recently reminded me of the dangers of following someone who SAYS all the right things but doesn't back it up by action. Who, oh who, was that?
Oh Yeah-HER.
So while Obama and Hillary are very close on many issues, I'd submit there are two they remain far apart on: Civil Liberties is one, But character and Commitment to their professed ideals seems to be another
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