I was very pleased to see the Supreme Court make the right decision on the terrorism suspects being held in Guantanamo Bay; the Supremes decided that the suspects have the right to challenge their detention in US courts.

McCain, who said that it was "one of the worst decisions" ever handed down by the Supreme Court, is wrong on this issue. Critics who have said this will lead to more American deaths practically imply that the Supremes declared all prisoners at Gitmo should simply be freed. No, the ultimate idea is to give the prisoners due process and a trial.

I think that many of the Gitmo detainees are depraved terrorists who would kill many, many more of us if given the chance. But holding them indefinitely with no trial starts the process of changing who WE are. And at the end, this is about us, not them. It's about who we are as a people and what kind of values we actually have compared to what values we say we have. So, give the suspects a trial. And those who are guilty--hang 'em high, (especially those who proudly admit that they killed or planned for the killing of innocent Americans) or give them life in prison, or whatever the punishment is determined to be.

McCain himself had very compelling words about these matters in connection with torture in November 2005, which I posted on this thread. I say it's the same issue at hand; psychologically, holding someone indefinitely with no trial is a form of torture; but in an even broader sense, it's the same issue, about all of us and our soldiers and our jailers being able to claim the moral high ground and hold our heads high. Narcissistic? Maybe, but it IS about us; it's about what kind of country we want to be.

Here are McCain's words again:

"But every one of us—every single one of us—knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or approving such mistreatment of them. That faith was indispensable not only to our survival, but to our attempts to return home with honor. For without our honor, our homecoming would have had little value to us.

....

"Those who return to us and those who give their lives for us are entitled to that honor. And those of us who have given them this onerous duty are obliged by our history, and the many terrible sacrifices that have been made in our defense, to make clear to them that they need not risk their or their country's honor to prevail; that they are always—through the violence, chaos and heartache of war, through deprivation and cruelty and loss—they are always, always, Americans, and different, better and stronger than those who would destroy us."

**********

Here's a separate question: McCain was born on a US military base located in a foreign country. Should that disqualify him to run for president? Of course not. A thousand times, no. I would debate anyone who says that should disqualify him until I am purple in the face. So why not extend the same logic to places like Gitmo--not physically in the US, but for all means and purposes, people who are there should be treated as if they are in the US. Creating an offshore prison to avoid the US rule of law was a deeply flawed strategy from the start.

**********

On NPR this morning, Scott Simon asked a very compelling question of an Obama spokesman--Simon asked, if Obama is saying, "We are not Red America and we are not Blue America; we are the United States of America!" (and generally preaching togetherness) then why can you buy such an assortment of bumper stickers on Obama's website, that include "African Americans for Obama," and "Latinos for Obama" and "Asian American Pacific Islanders for Obama" and "GLBT for Obama" and "[Something in Hebrew I can't read] for Obama" and "Republicans for Obama"? The Obama spokesman answered in gibberish masquerading as English.

I agree with Obama on many of the most important issues, but the more I see of him, the more I think "classic politician" and the less I think "once-in-a-lifetime agent of change." And his new social security plan is absurd--he wants to levy a big new tax on people making more than $250K per year. As Obama himself said, it would affect about 3% of taxpayers. Well, Obama, that's not a solution, that's a sound bite. Trying to balance social security on the backs of people who are making $250K or more is not going to work in the long run (i.e., 3% paying for 97%). The only thing that's going to work is to make people work longer and remember that when the Social Security system was started, the retirement age was roughly equal to life expectancy...but now there's a large gap between the two, and that (ever-expanding) gap will slowly grind the system to death unless the retirement age is increased further.