Tricky Dick

No... this isn't a retrospective on Nixon. It's Tricky Dick "Darth" Cheney who's back in the news. As you may already know, there's a bipartisan effort underway in Congress to pass a bill which would "regulate the detention, treatment and trials of detainees held by the American military." Given all of our problems stemming from American treatment of detainees in the "war on terror," you'd think this is a pretty smart move, no? Well, Dick Cheney disagrees and apparently is personally working to undermine such activity in his own party.

In an unusual, 30-minute private meeting on Capitol Hill on Thursday night, Mr. Cheney warned three senior Republicans on the Armed Services Committee that their legislation would interfere with the president's authority and his ability to protect Americans against terrorist attacks.

The legislation, which is still being drafted, includes provisions to bar the military from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross; prohibit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees; and use only interrogation techniques authorized in a new Army field manual.

Well, heavens to mergatroid. We certainly wouldn't want rules like those in place, now would we? Bush is threatening to veto any such measure, even if his own party supports it. To counter this threat, Congress is considering tying the proposal in as an amendment to the upcoming vote on the more than $400B budget which will be coming up for a vote shortly.

Normally I don't approve of tying tricky amendments to other bills just to get them passed, and would rather see each piece of legislation face a vote on its own merits. In this case, however, I think the subject is related to the military budget closely enough to make it worthwhile.

Some more thoughts on this from MyDD:

So in a nutshell, the White House is fighting their own party in the Senate to reserve the right to torture prisoners. Insane, and yet thoroughly unsurprising.

And the usual sensible take from TalkLeft.

Related
Alberto Gonzales and the Plame outing.