Inconsistency

Wha?

WASHINGTON — President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

“He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.”

The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan. “The issue is,” the participant said, “What are the options left open to a future president?”

So the guy who wants to close Guantanamo because it’s a “recruiting tool” for people who hate us and it’s not in line with our “core values” is considering a plan to detain individuals who haven’t committed a crime and cannot be tried.  OK, first off, why close Gitmo if you want to expand the program?  Second, how is detaining individuals that we can’t try within our core values when he wants to do it for vague national security reasons, but it does not reflect our core values to detain people who actually fight our soldiers on the battlefield and plan and carry out terrorist attacks?  Why evoke constitutionality on behalf of non-citizens who try to kill us when it’s politically favorable during a campaign, but then seek to expand and codify the practice?

The answer is that he’s not who he says he is.  Or rather, whatever he wants to do is OK because he wants to do it.

My concern is that if he can find some constitutional exception for “preventive detention,” will it be applied to American citizens?  Obama’s Homeland Security department has already identified the kind of “extremists” his administration is concerned about, including soldiers returning from foreign wars, people who support 2nd Amendment gun rights and 10th Amendment federalism, and who oppose illegal immigration and abortion.  Is it a big leap to reclassify someone you consider an extremist as potential terrorist?