Say Anything Blog

Jose Padilla

The left is in full meltdown today over Jose Padilla's conviction, pouring all their energy and passion into defending an al-Qaeda operative now convicted of planning to murder our fellow citizens with a dirty bomb. It is saddening and pathetic enough that they can only seem to get worked up about excusing al-Qaeda members rather than fighting them. What makes it more doleful is that their hand-wringing over Padilla is based on misperceptions and misinformation fed to them by partisans more interested in skewering President Bush than at arriving at the truth.

Here is the false leftist narrative on the Padilla case: President Bush is using his unitary executive powers to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without charges, legal counsel, or regard for any constitutional rights. A typical apoplectic leftist response is this, from the Democratic Underground: "imprisoned without charge for 3.5 years, physically and/or psychologically tortured 'til he's half-insane, and what do we do? Convict him anyway. Now he'll face the needle." This Kos diarist warns: "everything points to a coming police state and woe unto all dissenters, both here and everywhere."

Well, first of all, Padilla is facing life imprisonment, not the death penalty. As for being imprisoned for 3.5 years without charges, it isn't as if he and his battalion of lawyers were not busy during that time: Padilla had a hearing on his petition for a writ of habeus corpus, had questions over the writ heard before the Supreme Court, and had a second appeal before the Fourth Circuit. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but that is true for everybody, not just al-Qaeda dirty bomb makers.

As for the claims of torture, these came from a forensic psychologist hired by Padilla's legal team. Enough said.

As for the overwrought fears of the Kos diarist, it is not true that the Padilla case means "woe unto all dissenters." Only those 'dissenters' who also happen to be al-Qaeda operatives need worry about being classified as enemy combatants. It was Congress that passed legislation allowing this kind of detention for American citizens, not some Executive Order from President Bush. The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) allows for military commissions to target nations, organizations or persons whom the President "determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the September 11, 2001 attacks, or harbored such organizations or persons." The DUmmies and Kos Kultists might be surprised to learn that clownsuit-wearing hippies on stilts leading International A.N.S.W.E.R. protests are exempt. Padilla, being an al-Qaeda alum however, fits into that category quite nicely, and was held as an enemy combatant, not as a criminal suspect. Only when he was handed over to the Department of Justice for indictment did the time begin to toll for speedy trial requirements.

Of course, facts don't matter when there is a narrative to be propounded.

Crossposted from WILLisms.com