President Georack Odubya Strikes Again

On a day where the FBI follows procedure and builds a case against terror suspects and makes arrests, charging suspects with crimes in order to try them in America's court system and send these alleged terrorists, who supposedly want to kill Americans, into our prison system, President Odubya wants to codify into law the ability to detain terror suspects indefinitely without charging them.

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.

The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny national security matters, including his promise to close the detention center at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama’s stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions — a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate.

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.

In other words, this man wants to put into law the ability to incarcerate people forever with no trial.

I'm hoping there's much more to this story than is being reported. I'm hoping as a matter of fact this is something of a trial balloon that will get the President pillaged by both the libertarian right and the civil liberties left, and that the President will abandon this stupidity.

Throwing people in jail with no trial? That really is Obama fascism.

Between his growing role as Odubya on civil liberties and the slow death of our economy, I have to honestly question our President's methods and abilities to lead this country at times. Not even George Bush dared to ask Congress to put laws on the books allowing this...which means Obama doesn't believe that the all-powerful plenary executive gives him the ability to do this. He wants Congress to cover his ass.

Which means Obama is basically admitting to breaking the law right now.

Might want to keep that in the back of your mind when you read about Democrats killing Obama's efforts to close Gitmo.

While allies such as Durbin have cast the development as a delay of only a few months, other Democrats have made it plain they don't want any of Guantanamo's detainees sent to the United States to stand trial or serve prison sentences.

Despite the setback, some Democrats said Obama should not be underestimated.

"The president's very capable of putting together a plan that I think will win the approval of a majority of members of Congress," said moderate Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. "I can't imagine that he won't."

Well gosh Ben, I can. He's practically said he's considering plans to not only keep Gitmo open, but to keep detainees there for the rest of his Presidency.

If Obama allows "preventative detention" then no American is safe.

[UPDATE] Money quote in the Boston Globe:

Obama was succinct about his reversal, according to one person at the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private: "He said, 'I was a constitutional law scholar. Now I'm commander in chief.' "

If it wasn't so tragically Kafkaesque, I'd be laughing at how naive I was to think Obama would actually keep his promises on this.