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February 10, 2012
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David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
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The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
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February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
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Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
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January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
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January 13, 2012
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Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
May 14, 2008
/ 9 Iyar 5768 5768
Which McCain would be president?
By
Nat Hentoff
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
As the no-holds-barred battle for the Democratic presidential nomination mercifully nears an end, renewed attention is being focused on the several John McCains bearing the Republican armor. Having written that I cannot vote for Barack Obama because he is an extremist on abortion who refused to even save a sudden live baby resulting from a botched abortion, I also have concerns about the consistency of some of McCain's positions.
The First Amendment being the foundation of our constitutional self-government, I recall McCain's comment about the McCain-Feingold "clean elections" law that directly and significantly silences the opinions of a range of advocacy groups at crucial points during presidential campaigns.
In the March 26 New York Times, Matt Welch, a former Los Angeles Times editor, quoted McCain: "I would rather have a clean government than one, where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt." The straight-talk express rides over free speech.
As the torrent of money on both sides of the current presidential race makes clear through large loopholes in that law presidential politics is far from cleaner, even as the First Amendment is now seriously diminished.
Also, as noted in the April 7 Newsweek, McCain pledges his election will mean a return to what Thomas Jefferson insisted is essential to our reputation in the world: "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."
What has severely eroded the worldwide respect for us, including the respect of some of our primary allies against the homicidal terrorists, are the CIA's "renditions." CIA agents kidnapped terrorism suspects off the streets of Italy and other countries and "rendered" them to such nations as Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, known for torturing their prisoners, thereby extracting information that not even the CIA, with its "special powers," could get.
These renditions have been valuable propaganda and recruiting tools for Al Qaeda and other terrorists. Also helpful to our enemies are the CIA's secret prisons in various parts of the world, where "enhanced interrogation techniques," as President Bush approvingly calls them, are practiced, including waterboarding (during which the suspect is made to believe he is immediately about to drown unless he opens up to his torturers).
McCain has won much approbation here and around the world as an insistent opponent of the United States torturing prisoners. But recently, when both the Senate and the House passed an amendment to an appropriations bill requiring that the Army Field Manual forbidding torture be expanded to include the CIA among all the other nontorturing branches of the services, McCain voted against it. And the president vetoed the legislation with support from McCain.
McCain's willingness, as he has stated, to insulate the CIA from the International Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment that it has so often violated may connect to his admiration for Dick Cheney, a key protector of the CIA's methods. As quoted in Matt Welch's "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), McCain says Cheney is "as capable and sensible a public servant as I've known" (page 149).
My deepest concern about McCain is whether, as our next president, he will recognize his enormous responsibility to restore the Constitution's separation of powers. In both parties, also including many independents, there is a stark realization that the Bush administration has expanded unilateral presidential powers more radically than any other in American history.
However, whatever can be accomplished to restore that core of the Constitution by the next president's leadership and congressional legislation can be blocked by the Supreme Court. On May 6, McCain, noting that Bush's successor may have two (or more) vacancies to fill on the Supreme Court, proudly disclosed that the models for his nominees would be the present chief justice, John Roberts, and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. (He has previously added William Rehnquist.)
Roberts and Alito have shown hardly any concern for the Bush administration's extrajudicial and often covert disregard for the Constitution's checks and balances on the ever-growing surveillance and databasing of Americans and the brazen disregard of the most elemental due process at Guantanamo Bay, including the often brutal conditions of confinement. There are likely to be no trials there until the next administration.
The Bush legacy includes so much more contempt for the rule of law, from which the Constitution has to be rescued. We now know, for instance, that the telephones of American civilian attorneys representing Gitmo prisoners are bugged by the Justice Department! McCain has often emphasized protecting the values of "who we are as Americans."
Those values are in the oath he will take if he becomes president. After being sworn in, will he write a classified signing statement reserving his sole right to reinterpret that oath?
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights and author of several books, including his current work, "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance". Comment by clicking here.
Nat Hentoff Archives
© 2006, NEA
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