Barack Obama

9/11, Barack Obama, Ground Zero, John McCain, September 11, World Trade Center

At Ground Zero, on September 11, tell us about terrorists’ rights, Senator Obama

by  • 

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are scheduled to attend a forum in New York City this Thursday, September 11. Presumably, they will visit the World Trade Center, speak to the media, and make formal comments in some venue. While Senator Obama is there, I hope he expands upon what Constitutional rights terrorists and combatants — both lawful and unlawful — have when found outside of our nation and its territories. Specifically, does he believe they are protected by the same rights as a common criminal found within the United States concerning self-incrimination, searches, and legal representation? Should they have full rights to discovery during prosecution?

My family will be at Ground Zero that day only to remember and honor those who were murdered by terrorists, on our soil, on 9/11. Yet I invite Senator Obama, while there, to repeat what he said in Michigan yesterday:

“First of all, you don’t even get to read them their rights until you catch ’em,” Obama said here, drawing laughs from 1,500 supporters in a high school gymnasium. “They should spend more time trying to catch Osama bin Laden and we can worry about the next steps later.”

If the plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks are in the government’s sights, Obama went on, they should be targeted and killed.

“My position has always been clear: If you’ve got a terrorist, take him out,” Obama said. “Anybody who was involved in 9/11, take ’em out.”

But Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for more than a decade, said captured suspects deserve to file writs of habeus corpus.

Calling it “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” he said the principle “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person.'”

The safeguard is essential, Obama continued, “because we don’t always have the right person.”

“We don’t always catch the right person,” he said. “We may think it’s Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it’s Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.”

Obama turned back to Palin’s comment, although he said he was not sure whether Palin or Rudy Giuliani said it.

“The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It’s because that’s who we are. That’s what we’re protecting,” Obama said, his voice growing louder and the crowd rising to its feet to cheer. “Don’t mock the Constitution. Don’t make fun of it. Don’t suggest that it’s not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”

Perhaps Senator Obama will also point out where in our Constitution it says non-Americans, outside the United States, have the same rights as we have here.

Update, 10:42 AM, September 9, 2008:

An emailer had a few questions of their own for Senator Obama:

Of course, Sarah Palin probably doesn’t think the Constitution applies to foreign terrorists. But notice that he says, if they’re involved in 9/11 “take them out.” You mean, assassinate them before a trial? How do we know “they’re involved in 9/11” unless we give them the full monty? And what about the intelligence we might have gotten if we “take them out” without interrogation?

Barack Obama, Biden, John McCain, Joseph Biden, Sarah Palin

Did Joe Biden dodge the military draft after bloody Tet offensive?

by  • 

Click on image for the actual September 2, 2008, front page

After seven years of initial eligibility, Joseph Biden was removed from the military draft pool just when it was most likely he would be drafted and sent into the Vietnam War. The American death toll was rising rapidly — 11,153 in 1967. Thousands more had died since the Tet offensive began in January, 296,000 men ages 19 through 25 would be drafted during 1968, Joseph Biden had run out of college deferments, and he would not be safe until November 20, 1968, his twenty-sixth birthday.

During the Democrat Party convention, Joseph Biden was spoken of in glowing terms on the pages of the New York Times on August 28, 2008:

As Democrats often do, [at the convention, Biden] paid tribute to Mr. McCain’s military service and his more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. That is not sufficient qualification for the presidency, Mr. Biden said in as direct a way as any Democrat this year has. “The choice in this election is clear,” Mr. Biden said. “These times require more than a good soldier. They require a wise leader,” he said, a leader who can deliver “the change that everybody knows we need.” … The self-described “kid from Scranton” paid a moving tribute to his 90-year-old mother, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden. He said she had taught him honor, loyalty and bravery. She also helped him overcome his stuttering, telling him, as he put it, “it was because I was so bright I couldn’t get the thoughts out quickly enough.”

Despite two runs for President, in 1988 and 2008, and 36 years in Congress, Senator Biden’s 1-Y reclassification has never appeared in the Times, to include this Associated Press report from August 31, 2008:

Officials with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s campaign released Biden’s Selective Service records at the request of The Associated Press. Less detailed records were available from a National Archives facility in Philadelphia [emphasis added mine].

According to the documents, Biden, 65, received several deferments while he was an undergraduate at the University of Delaware and later as a law student at Syracuse University. A month after undergoing a physical exam in April 1968, Biden received a Selective Service classification of 1-Y, meaning he was available for service only in the event of national emergency.

“As a result of a physical exam on April 5, 1968, Joe Biden was classified 1-Y and disqualified from service because of asthma as a teenager,” said David Wade, a campaign spokesman.

In “Promises to Keep,” a memoir that was published last year and became an instant best-seller after he was tapped as Obama’s running mate, Biden never mentions his asthma, recounting an active childhood, work as a lifeguard and football exploits in high school.

Along with some other leading Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pointed out Vice President Richard Cheney’s five draft deferments during the Vietnam War yet never mentioned those of Senator Biden.

The details of his April 5, 1968 medical examination — to include who examined Biden and sent the 1-Y reclassification card to his draft board — remain undetermined by the mainstream media.

Senator John McCain and Senator Biden are touted for their foreign policy experience that Senator Barack Obama and Governor Sarah Palin are said to lack.

The difference is John McCain entered the Naval Academy in 1955, served in Vietnam, spent 5 1/2 years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton, and retired from the United States Navy in 1982. Neither Barack Obama nor Joseph Biden have served in the military. Sarah Palin “merely” served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard.

Apparently, Congressman Pelosi and the New York Times do not want the American people to know that Joseph Biden may have dodged the draft during Vietnam.