Cross-posted at MyDD
Hi, everyone. As you may know, my Dad is Jack Carter, who's running for US Senate in Nevada. He's been in the hospital recently with severe colitis - you may have read about it last week with diaries from CTLiberal and from Greg, our deputy campaign manager for research. Good news on that front: he is now home from the hospital and doing well. He's beginning to ease back into his campaign schedule. Our only concern now is that he'll try to do too much too fast - he's not very good at sitting still.
What I want to point out today is the vast difference between my Dad and his opponent, John Ensign, on the issue of torture.
Last week, there was a vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee on whether to support the Bush administration's policy for interrogating enemy combatants, which includes use of techniques that are normally defined as torture, including waterboarding. The competing policy is more moderate and would not allow torture techniques.
John Ensign has voted with the Bush administration 96% of the time since he's been elected (including a perfect score in 2004). So, it was not surprising that he voted with Bush this time around, too. The
Las Vegas Review-Journal covered the story:
Ensign, R-Nev., voted Thursday in the Senate Armed Services Committee against a draft bill that rejects Bush's proposed standards for questioning terror suspects and holding military commissions for their trials.
Instead, legislation was passed that would grant suspects broader civil rights. Supporters said it would be more consistent with the Geneva Conventions for treatment of enemy combatants, while Bush's approach would grant powers to the United States that fall outside the treaties.
The vote was 15-9, with four Republicans joining 11 Democrats in the majority.
Ensign said promoters of the alternative, who include Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, "are trying to do the right things, but what they are trying to do would result in putting terrorist rights over the interest of the American people."
His statements didn't stop there. He went on to say that he doesn't count waterboarding as torture, and displayed some interesting thoughts about the "American Way:"
Ensign said U.S. interrogators should be allowed to use the toughest techniques short of "torture" and should be legally protected from war crime accusations.
Ensign said he does not consider sleep deprivation to be a "torture" technique, nor "waterboarding," in which a subject is dunked under water to near-drowning.
Asked in an interview if that was not contrary to the "American way," Ensign said, "These people are not Americans. They are the worst of the worst. We are not talking about somebody suspected of minor crimes."
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Now, let's compare his statements to some of my Dad's. From that
same article:
Jack Carter, the Democrat opposing Ensign in this fall's Senate election, said the interrogation policies promoted by Bush and endorsed by Ensign "are clearly contrary to our core American values."
Back in January, he wrote an Op-Ed that ran in the Elko Daily Free Press about this topic. It was one of his first public statements, and it was called
"War for American Values." Here's an excerpt (but you should read the
whole thing):
On 9/11, Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts struck at symbols of American strength - business through the World Trade Towers, military might at the Pentagon, and our government with the foiled attempt aimed at the Capitol Building.
But the true target of these attacks was the wellspring of our strength, the values upon which our Nation stands: individual freedom, the separation of power among the three branches of government, the rule of law, and the fierce pride these values arouse in all Americans who rise to defend them at every threat.
. . .
There is no doubt that torturing people is un-American. There is no doubt that unfettered eavesdropping on Americans by the executive branch is un-American. There is no doubt that holding prisoners without due process is un-American.
These are the spear marks our attackers left, every bit as much a wound as the gaping hole in New York's skyline. These were inflicted, not by suicide bombers, but by Fear.
A great local blogger, the
Las Vegas Gleaner, has noticed that my Dad takes these sorts of issues very seriously. Back when the Supreme Court struck down Bush's use of extra-judicial tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, the Gleaner
wrote (again, an excerpt, but you should read the
whole thing):
The Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, or its eavesdropping program or its other offenses against civil rights and the Constitution in the name of "smoking out" the "evildoers," are exactly the type of offenses against the nation, and all for which it stands, that a lot of Democrats try to stay away from. They fear that by championing civil liberties (or "American values," as Carter will occasionally phrase it when talking about Bush's attacks on liberty), they will be branded as coddling the enemy and/or insufficiently bloodthirsty with regard to the "war on terror." Much safer to talk about raising the minimum wage.
Carter, though making his first bid for political office, can hardly be called a political neophyte. He, too, assuredly understands the political risk of going out of his way to blast the administration over policies that the administration and the Republicans simply love to talk about; doing "whatever it takes," even if it means bending or breaking the law, to "hunt down" the "bad guys."
So why, with the pressures of last-minute fundraising, did Carter feel compelled to whip up a statement on the Supreme Court ruling Thursday? Why did he bring up the administration's assault on the Constitution and Constitutional principles during his announcement speech in February? Why did he raise the specter of the U.S. torturing people, eavesdropping, and holding prisoners without due process in an opinion column in January -- in the newspaper in Elko, Nevada?
Maybe Carter feels that with Ensign presumed to be so far out ahead, he's got nothing to lose. Maybe Carter's got some internal polling that shows the civil liberty issues, presented properly, actually connect with an underlying libertarian streak in Nevada.
Or, there is the possibility, s'pose, that when Carter says, "When the executive branch tries to evade review of their actions by our courts or to avoid oversight by our elected representatives in Congress, it is a patriot's duty to demand a change," he, you know, believes it.
This is just one more example of an issue where the contrast between my Dad and John Ensign couldn't be more clear. We're doing all we can to get rid of this guy, but we need your help - please donate if you can. A lot will happen over the next 7 weeks, and we need to be prepared!
We are trying to raise $100,000 in online contributions for the month of September. Right now, we're just past $30,000. If you can help us meet our goal, I promise that we will do everything we can to get rid of John Ensign and replace him with someone who understands true American Values. Please give what you can!
Thanks for reading!
Sarah
You can always find more at the Carter Blog