Political Punch
Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper
Jake Tapper is ABC News' Senior White House Correspondent based in the network's Washington bureau. He writes about politics and popular culture and covers a range of national stories.
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Questions on Hamdan
June 29, 2006 2:06 PM
In interests of media transparency, here are some of the questions I asked at today's White House briefing with press secretary Tony Snow about today's Hamdan decision handed down by the US Supreme Court....
JT: Tony, in addition to seeking congressional authorization for military tribunals or for whatever's next, what other possible next steps are there for the administration to take?
SNOW: Don't know, and don't want to get into it. I would refer you -- I think the Justice Department is going to be trying to do a briefing later in the day. I would leave that to legal minds who have got far greater standing to speak on it than I do.
JT: OK. In addition to that, there was some strong rhetoric in some of these decisions there is some harsh rhetoric in the majority decisions. Kennedy, writing in his separate opinion, said "concentration of power," referring specifically to the executive branch, "puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the Constitution's three-part system is designed to avoid." Is there any feeling in terms of the administration's reaction to that?
SNOW: No. Again, you're trying to frame this as a political fight. And it's not. The Supreme Court has now rendered its judgment in the Hamdan case. And it is now the obligation of the administration, which the president, who controls the executive branch, to figure out how to proceed to create laws, to execute laws that are consistent with the Supreme Court's holding. As you also know, Justice Thomas, for the first time in his career, read an opinion from the bench. This is one, where, just looking from the recitation I just gave you, I think that there were pretty vigorous differences, not merely among those who disagreed on the court, but among those who agreed. So that's why there has to be some forbearance here. I think the most important thing to realize is that Section 3 holding by Justice Stevens which talks about congressional authorization, I think that probably is the nub here. And Justice Stevens felt strongly enough that he did talk about that from the bench today.
JT: I'm not trying it as a political argument, but the White House has put forward the argument that in extraordinary times the White House needs to take extraordinary measures and act as executive power on its own. And the Supreme Court -- a majority ruling of the Supreme Court, has said, "No, you can't. Not in this instance."
SNOW: Well, the majority of the Supreme Court -- a lot of this is procedural. And that's why it gets complicated and it gets pretty quickly beyond my brief. But if you take a look at it, a lot of it really is procedural. It has to do with congressional authorizations, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and so on.
JT: Those are the steps that you guys bypassed.
SNOW: Well, and so, those are not going to be bypassed in the future. And there's a disagreement. The Supreme Court has rendered its decision.
Thoughts?
I asked some follow-up questions later, will post them when I get the transcript.
--jt
June 29, 2006 | Permalink | User Comments (2)
This action by the Courts is outrageous, and severely limits any Presidents ability to wage a war.
This is an example of the Liberals adding another "amendement" to the "al Qaeda Bill Of Rights".
They have in fact One Right, to Die anyway we can get to them. The only Good Terrorist is a Dead Terrorist.
Posted by: Jimmy D. | Jul 8, 2006 11:37:48 AM
I believe it was NYT columnist David Brooks who said that George W. Bush believes that he is leading a government composed of people, not laws, and acts accordingly. Mr. Brooks explained that some Presidents believe that the law must be considered first and foremost before taking action, where this president believes that people and their actions must be considered first and foremost instead of the law. (As an important aside, I don't think that Mr. Brooks was making any value judgment or any implication that the President ignores the law or tries to flout it. It's just that when he considers what to do in a situation, he first thinks of the people involved instead of the laws involved.) In this light, this administration's actions are more understandable, at least to me, even though their legality is, at best questionable. Apparently, the Supreme Court agrees, even though they faulted the President for overstepping his authority on technical grounds.
More important, though, is Guantanamo's continued existence as nothing more than an embarrassment and a neverending source of grief for America. The prisoners' legal status should be decided as soon as possible and they should be tried in whatever court system--civilian or military--is appropriate. There is absolutely no excuse for keeping ANY prisoners as long as these without having clarified their legal status and their rights!
Posted by: chuck | Jun 29, 2006 2:49:26 PM
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