Well not QUITE literally
But that's the gist of what he has actually said.....and it amounts to that........Seriously.
Keith Olbermann really wasn't joking about his "See me in Gitmo"
From today's Froomkin:http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
First, Bushie LIKES this bill - he didn't even do a signing statement!
Here's another sign of how pleased the White House was with this legislation.
Signing statements -- in which the president quietly asserts his right to ignore legislative provisions that he believes conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution -- have become a controversial tradition at the Bush White House.
But at Monday's briefing , Snow disclosed that there would be no signing statement issued for this bill.
Reporters were shocked, and asked why.
"Q Tony, was there any agreement with Congress that there would not be a signing statement?
"MR. SNOW: No.
"Q This just seems like the kind of bill where there are a lot of things to be interpreted and take a look at.
"MR. SNOW: They did a really good job this time.
"Q Wow. (Laughter.)"
Next, Bill O'Reilly (yes HIM) actually asked Bushie whether he should make clear if waterboarding is torture or not.
Here's the president's response, in its entirety:
Bush: "Well, one thing is that you can rest assured we are not going to talk about the techniques we use in a public forum, no matter how hard you try, because I don't want the enemy to be able to adjust their tactics if we capture them on the battlefield.
"But what the American people need to know is we have a program in place that is able to get intelligence from these people and we have used it to stop attacks. The intelligence community believes strongly that the information we got from the detainee questioning program yielded information that made America safer, that we stopped attacks.
Translation: "You been listening to people who materially support terrorists, Bill?..............Y'know, people like THIS?"
"What's interesting about these votes that took place in the Congress is the number of Democrats that opposed questioning people we picked up on the battlefield. And I think that's an issue that they will have to explain to the American people."
(Froomkin) So apparently that's his answer to O'Reilly's excellent and important question: Democrats are pro-terrorist.
Now the key part:
According to the bill he signed yesterday, all that is required to send somebody to Gitmo and throw away the key is to have them declared an "unlawful enemy combatant".....and Bush has the authority to have assembled for him a 3 man tribunal willing to say this (Quick! Dickie, Mr Gonzalez and Mr. Addington, lets do Tribunal! - where's my Field Marshals uniform?). The bill doesn't even make it clear whether Bush can consign a person (ANY person) to UEC status essentially on whim.
It does say something about needing to "materially support" terrorists, but that is to be determined by Bushie (or his Tribunal), and if he considers Dems to be supporting terrorism already, well.......