Specter-Levin

Your Humble Blogger hasn’t ranted about the abominable detention bill, because—hey, any Gentle Readers not already outraged? Anybody feel they need to know more? Any of you think that there was a real compromise and that Senators McCain and Warner actually did something that will be for the good of the country? No? Fine. All of you know your Senators’ telephone numbers, or how to get them? Yes? Fine.

What I did find interesting was the push that made the rounds of Left Blogovia to get your Senators to support the Specter-Levin amendment. I first saw it over at Benjamin Rosenbaum’s place. He linked to the Center for Constitutional Rights’s’sses Call to Action. Now, YHB is definitely in favor of habeas corpus, and of extending that writ to anybody, anywhere, held under any circumstances whatsoever. However, I don’t actually trust Senator Specter at all, and I don’t really trust Senator Levin on this issue, much as I like him generally. A “compromise” amendment crafted by those two might well be disgusting in itself. So, before posting here with a recommendation to call your Senators, I went looking for the text of the bill. And I found nothing.

All the mentions of the amendment that I could find were based on the CCR Call. The Senators’ Web Pages didn’t have anything, and there wasn’t anything in the news. I did find a mention that the two Senators were talking about the possibility of trying to amend whichever bill was passed (this was before the Bad Bill and the Worse Bill combined to become a Truly Foul Bill), but as far as I could tell, there was no actual amendment. I would actually feel a little embarrassed to call my Senators to ask them to support a non-existent amendment. And, even if the amendment exists in some sense, before it is actually formulated, I can’t quite see my way to encouraging my Senators to support it. I want my Senator to oppose the bill itself. Yes, the (partial) abolition of habeus is appalling, but taking that part out, or putting in some language about how it doesn’t apply to Real People isn’t going to make the bill good, or protect us against further erosion. Nor, of course, would the amendment make much difference to what will actually be in the text of a law that comes out of the Conference Committee.

On the other hand, it is starting to appear that there will be, or at least might be, such an amendment. Kathleen over at Obsidian Wings seems to think that there will be, although she points to an AP article that does not mention such an amendment. Senator Specter does not post a draft on his website, but he is certainly talking as though he dislikes the bill.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make, Gentle Reader, is that if had heard the urge to call your Senator and ask him or her to vote for the Specter-Levin amendment, perhaps you might want to change the phrasing to something like support habeas corpus or oppose changes how the executive can legally deal with detainees. Make it clear that you oppose the entire bill, and you will continue to do so with or without any changes Senators Specter and Levin may make.

Unless you like the bill, I suppose, which would be something else altogether.

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.