The Big Compromise

So, let's see, the White House made a major concession in agreeing that defendants will be able to see the evidence against them. What a big win! We're keeping a standard that's been in effect since when, the Magna Carta?

But maybe it wasn't even really a concession from the White House after all, because the administration's front man in the House, Duncan Hunter, is still holding the secret evidence flag high. We've seen a well-established pattern of having surprise changes made to a reasonable Senate bill by the House-Senate conference committee. By the time the final bill passes, who knows what the law will be? Did the White House really give up, or did it just decide to fight on more favorable ground?

Meanwhile, on the torture question, the devil is in the details. Apparently the compromise is to agree to leave language of the Geneva provisions alone, and some things like murder and rape are out of the question. But they provide that CIA interrogators won't be liable for criminal prosecution if they use other procedures that will be clarified later by the White House. Come on, even a toddler can figure out that, if you tell him not to do something, but there are no consequences for doing it, then he might as well do it if he wants.

The big White House concession here is what? It wanted torture to be made legal, and it had to settle for it being not illegal? It has to restrict itself to things that don't involve killing, raping and mutilating? Great.

The other way to limit the use of torture is making coerced evidence inadmissable. On that front, the valiant Senators have agreed to replace the blanket prohibition with judges who'll decide whether or not to use such evidence. Perhaps the President could appoint Jay Bybee and John Yoo for that position, just to simplify the process.

So we have a deal on evidence that may evaporate in the process of passing the actual law, once the cameras are gone. Even if it stays, it just continues the standard for fair trial procedures that civilized people have used for centuries. Hurray. We have an agreement on Geneva standards that says our interrogators should avoid torture, but will be safe if somehow, completely by accident I'm sure, torture happens. And we have a system where evidence derived from that torture could be ruled admissable by a judge.

Some compromise.

Of course, all the nasty details may be lost in the flood of positive news coverage. The handy narrative for the press will of course be along the lines that the valiant Republican Senators have talked down the White House's excesses, and crafted tough but fair legislation that makes everyone happy. See, Republicans can be trusted to run the government, and you don't need to elect Democrats to put a check on the White House.

In fact, the headline from the AP? GOP Hopes to Parlay Deal on Detainees

The Washington Democrats have set themselves up for this. It's pathetic, not just because they've been silent on a fundamental constitutional and moral issue with tremendous ramifications, but also because bloggers and anyone paying attention have been predicting this 'compromise' since the Big Three made their opposition known two weeks ago. It's a pattern. Republican Senators make a big public stand, the White House is pulled up short, then they agree on something that is detestible, but can be made to appear like a good 'compromise', the White House tweaks the bill in conference committee and it gets what it wants. Meanwhile, the party has turned a huge oozing pustule into a sweet smelling rose. While the Democrats have been where, exactly?

It's so much easier to run a one-party state when the second party doesn't show up.

Charles Pierce at TAPPED channels the anger I think many of us are feeling:

And the Democratic Party was nowhere in this debate. It contributed nothing. On the question of whether or not the United States will reconfigure itself as a nation which tortures its purported enemies and then grants itself absolution through adjectives -- "Aggressive interrogation techniques" -- the Democratic Party had…no opinion. On the issue of allowing a demonstrably incompetent president as many of the de facto powers of a despot that you could wedge into a bill without having the Constitution spontaneously combust in the Archives, well, the Democratic Party was more pissed off at Hugo Chavez.

This was as tactically idiotic as it was morally blind. On the subject of what kind of a nation we are, and to what extent we will live up to the best of our ideals, the Democratic Party was as mute and neutral as a stone. Human rights no longer have a viable political constituency in the United States of America.

The leading Washington Democrats need to realize that they can issue press releases and policy papers until the cows come home, but no one will believe they actually stand for anything until they actually start standing for something.